Of Friendship and Wormholes
by gammacorvi
Summary: Spock still mourns Vulcan. He mourns the loss of his people, of their knowledge, their culture. Never again will he feel the sand of Vulcan's desert on his skin or hear the cry of the Le-matya from the mountains. It is gone. Lost. Why should he live when so much has been lost? He would sacrifice his life in an instant if it would bring back his world and his people.
1. Aftermath

_Story_ : Of Friendship and Wormholes

 _Author_ : gammacorvi

 _Fandom_ : Star Trek, Kelvin Timeline

 _Chapter_ : Aftermath

 _Chapter Summary_ : Does Spock's life matter?

 _Pairing_ : James T. Kirk & Spock friendship, James T. Kirk Prime & Spock Prime friendship, Spock/Nyota Uhura

 _Notes_ : This story will focus on the friendship between Kirk and Spock from either Universe. I assume that there is a strong bond between them. This story is not K/S (although I love reading K/S!).

Please enjoy!

* * *

 **ooo**

 **Of Friendship and Wormholes**

by gammacorvi

 _ **-Chapter 1-**_

 _ **Aftermath**_

 _From the moment Spock received Scotty's comm, telling him to 'better hurry', until Uhura beamed down onto the garbage scow and shouted at him that Khan was their only hope to save the Captain's life, exactly 34 minutes passed. Spock did not actually knew this until much later, when the incident had been examined, evaluated, re-examined, re-evaluated and finally put down in pages and pages of an official report, which Spock had dutifully read and signed off on. The report tells the truth. The incident took exactly 34 minutes. Spock knows this because of the official timeline included in appendix 56. He double-checked it himself, double-checked it twice, in fact, because he couldn't believe it. 34 minutes. A factual truth. And yet, Spock knows that those 34 minutes are a lie. The time between Scotty's words and Uhura's plea was much longer. Countless details come to mind that could not possibly have happened in such a short time. Take the time it took the decontamination unit to arrive in the engine room after the Captain died. Or the wait until the airlock leading to the warp core had gone through its decontamination cycle and they were finally able to open the door. There was the moment when the Captain's body slipped sideways until Spock caught it, much to the horror of the decontamination unit, since he was not wearing a suit. And the time it took them to zip the Captain's body into a body bag, planning to take him away, over Spock's objections. Finally the arrival of Leonard McCoy who told them to fuck the regulations, the body was going to sickbay until he himself had determined the cause of death. And then, the chase, that Spock now barely remembers._

 _Time, usually a rapidly flowing entity had slowed down, turned into endlessly turning swirls and eddies. Spock had lost his friend and Captain and nothing would bring him back._

ooo

When Spock enters Sickbay after those 34 minutes the decontamination unit is trying to leave at the same time as security is wheeling in an unconscious Khan. The doctor is standing in the middle, barking out orders to everyone in sight, his staff milling around him. Not to speak of all the crewmembers, injured and uninjured, in various states of shock, some of them just standing around, gazing at the cryotube that holds their dead captain. There is Carol Marcus, cool and composed as if she is still merely defusing a photon torpedo, working on stabilizing the cryo sequence, unperturbed by the noise surrounding her, a rock in a stormy sea. When Spock comes close she barely looks up at him and says in that clipped, efficient way of hers:

"We need Khan's blood as soon as possible. This cryotube is too old to stabilize the Captain's neural pathways for more than a few hours."

Spock is not sure if she is speaking to him or to the doctor, but a nurse springs into action, approaching the unconscious Khan, obviously in the process of collecting the precious commodity.

Spock puts himself between the nurse and Khan.

"Did you obtain this individual's consent for the procedure you are about to undertake?" he asks. Everyone around him freezes. Spock is aware that there is a certain irony in the situation. He just tried beating Khan into a pulp. There was no question about consent then. Violence is supposedly alien to modern Vulcans, but there he is, battered, barely having been able to subdue Khan with the help of Nyota, a phaser, and his own strength, superior to a human, sufficient to possibly take on a Klingon in hand to hand combat but vastly inferior to Khan's genetically engineered, superhuman strength. In Vulcan history violence gradually gave way to logic and ethical considerations. But violence remains part of Vulcan nature, carefully controlled. Spock lost control when he attacked Khan. Now he takes it back.

Across the room Leonard McCoy's face has turned into stormclouds and his hands have formed into fists. The milling masses part before his approach until he stands right in front of Spock.

"You green-blooded, cold-hearted son of a bitch," he hisses. "I thought you were his friend!"

Spock stands straight, his hands clasped loosely behind his back.

"As you well know, Doctor," he says, "The Tragorian Convention of Stardate 2156 expressly deals with the ethical implications of forced consent, which are applicable in this setting. Alternatively I can quote Starfleet regulation 549, subsection 47c…"

There is a shocked exclamation from the crowd around him and then the doctor's fist connects with his face. Spock didn't see it coming which is a telltale sign of the state he is in. His vision blacks out for a moment and then he finds himself on the floor, not sure what is up and down and if his arms and legs still have a connection to the rest of his body.

"Fucking robot," someone whispers to his right. He identifies the voice as belonging to Lieutenant Hendorff, whom the Captain insists calling "Cupcake". Of course, Spock would never hold the opinion against the man, not in this situation.

Ensign Cho and Lieutenant Cree help him to his feet. The doctor makes another move but is restrained by a nurse and one of the members of the decontamination unit, still in his suit.

Spock tries to steady himself. Green blood is dripping from his lips and his nose. The world around him blurs again and he reaches out a hand to keep himself from falling. It connects with Khan's gurney and when Spock's vision clears he sees his enemy, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. Khan's hands are strapped down with titanium reinforced clasps, but his fingers manage to wrap around Spock's wrist, strong like a band of steel. The bruises left on his face by Spock's brutal beating are already fading, succumbing to his superior physiology.

"Did you know, Mr. Spock," he whispers, "that my body was genetically engineered to withstand all kinds of radiation? Warp core radiation cannot hurt me. If only your precious Captain had had some of my cells in his body he would still be alive."

Khan tugs at Spock's wrist and Spock bends closer. There is a voice of warning in the background but Spock doesn't care.

"I underestimated you, Mr. Spock," Khan whispers. "At heart you and I are both the same. Savages. I'm surprised. And impressed. And that little discussion you just had with the doctor about consent?"

His voice drops and Spock bends even closer, knowing that Khan is willing to meet Spock's need if Spock meets his.

"We both know that if I declined consent you would take what you need, anyway, is that not so, Mr. Spock?"

For a moment there is a perfect mutual understanding between them.

"To save what is dear to you. And I would respect you for it. But, of course, my respect means nothing to you."

Khan inclines his head toward the cryotubes that hold his own frozen crewmembers, his family.

"I understand the bonds forged in battle. I know what your Captain means to you. Just tell me one thing. Are they alive?"

Spock inclines his head and is not surprised when tears gather in Khan's eyes.

"Well played, Mr. Spock," he says, his voice choked with emotion. "Promise me that they will be kept alive."

Spock wipes blood off his lips.

"I promise," he says.

Khan relaxes.

"Then we will live to fight another day. You can take what you want."

His fingers release Spock's wrist and Spock straightens up and takes a step back. Telepathic contact lingers for a moment, then dissolves. There is a metallic taste in Spock's mouth that is not from his blood. He feels soiled but pushes back the emotion. He motions the nurse.

"He consented to have his blood taken. You can go ahead."

There is a moment of stunned silence. The doctor looks at him, eyebrows drawn together, before he turns around and goes to save the Captain's life.

Spock accepts a gauze from Nyota and tries to wipe the blood off his face. His lower lip is split and he can feel his nose swelling. She puts a steadying hand on his neck and he allows himself the weakness to lean into her touch.

Later he catches a glimpse of the Captain still in the cryotube, but the doctor sends him a glare that would have killed a lesser man and Spock decides it is better not to distract him. Uhura is being called away to deal with the communications system and Spock soon finds himself swept up in coordinating the salvage operation. After all they have been through, the Enterprise is badly damaged and has to be towed to Luna shipyards.

ooo

It is two days later when he finally catches a transport to San Francisco.

Several times he has attempted to communicate with the doctor, but Leonard McCoy has been answering in monosyllables and all Spock knows is that the Captain's life still hangs in the balance.

He secures himself a room at Starfleet Academy, takes a shower and puts on a new uniform. Then he permits himself 10 minutes of meditation before he heads over to Starfleet Medical.

-oooOOOooo-

His first look at the Captain is all but reassuring. He looks like a corpse, barely kept alive.

Spock stands behind a large window, looking into the Captain's room and suddenly finds himself back on the Enterprise, in front of the door to the warp core, kneeling, the Captain's eyes staring at him, sightlessly. He jolts back into the present, suddenly finding it hard to breathe, his heart beating rapidly, low in his right side.

"They told me you were here."

Leonard McCoy stands behind him, his scrubs a blinding white.

"What is his condition, doctor?" Spock asks, his voice perfectly controlled.

McCoy shrugs.

"It's better than being dead, but right now I can't make any promises."

After a short silence he adds:

"I know he looks like shit. We're all doing our best, Spock."

"I have no doubt, doctor."

"Of course, you want to know the details. Come to my office."

Spock nods, turns around and the doctor gasps in shock.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Spock lifts an eyebrow and has the satisfaction to see the doctor's ire rise.

"You know damned well what I mean. You are all beat up. Who did that to you?"

The doctor has suffered, too, during the last days. The Captain is a close friend, has been since Academy days and the recent events have hit him hard. Spock has known the doctor for several years and knows that the greater the stress the more aggressive he appears. He has never actually seen him hit another person in anger, but Spock is the last one to judge anyone for a violent breakdown. Consequently, he does not blame the doctor for the state his face is in.

"I did? Dammit, man, why didn't you let one of the nurses fix that mess?"

"The injury didn't affect my performance. Your staff had more important things to do."

The Doctor is speechless, but that, Spock finds, is nothing new.

He straightens himself and tightly clasps his shaking hands behind his back in preparation of the inevitable. He knows the doctor is going to find out shortly in just how poor a condition Spock really is.

And, lo and behold, the doctor indeed whips out his secret weapon, the tricorder, and gives him a thorough scan.

"Events have prevented me from seeking adequate rest," Spock forestalls, but the doctor doesn't even look up.

Finally he slips the sensor back in the docket and puts the tricorder down.

"As far as I can tell you haven't slept, you haven't eaten and you are dehydrated. The only thing that is holding you up is your Vulcan physiology. You know, Spock, that you have a human part, too."

"Indeed, Doctor."

"Your are on the verge of a physical breakdown, Spock."

As always, Spock thinks, the doctor is being overly dramatic.

"I can assure you that as a Vulcan I have coping mechanisms that far surpass..."

But the doctor is not listening. He takes Spock's elbow and ushers him into his office, uncharacteristically gentle. Spock is given the most thorough examination he has ever been subjected to. The swelling in his face and the split lip are repaired until only a slight discoloration remains. He is pretty sure that the doctor even slipped in a psychological evaluation somehow. Spock, frankly, is far too exhausted to care.

When everything is finished and he has been fed and rehydrated he prepares to leave. Water and food have made him feel better and relieved a pounding headache that he had been only dimly aware of. When he passes the Captain's room he sees Sulu sitting beside the bed, holding the Captain's hand, his head bent.

Spock does not have time to sit beside the Captain's bed. He is scheduled for a lengthy debriefing in an hour. On his way out of the door he is stopped by the doctor.

"Spock... "

"I am grateful, doctor..."

"Spock, I'm putting you on medical leave."

"Doctor McCoy, I'm due at Starfleet Command in an hour. I will need some time to myself before that. Good day."

He tries to exit but is sidestepped.

"I mean it, Spock. As of now you are on medical leave."

"The debriefing... "

"Can wait, Spock. Spock, you're in the middle of a breakdown, physical and psychological... No, don't you give me that look you green-blooded devil! I know it's a very Vulcan breakdown and you'll probably be able to function, but it could have serious long term consequences. I wouldn't be doing my job if I let you walk out that door."

"How long?"

"Dear God, Spock, if you're not even fighting me on this it must be bad... "

"Doctor..."

"A few days."

Spock nods.

"Since you will not let me leave, I will need a place to stay."

The doctor looks disappointed. Obviously he was looking for a fight. Under normal circumstances Spock would have been happy to accommodate him, but today he barely has the strength for the essentials.

ooo

A nurse takes him to a small room, tucked away in a corner of the building. Spock manages to get another glimpse of the Captain. Lieutenant Keenser has joined Sulu. He is tapping away on a PADD, no doubt giving Lieutenant Scott who is still on the Enterprise a thorough update on the Captain's condition.

Alone in his room Spock sets up the PADD on the desk and dims the windows to reduce the glare from the sun. For a minute he savours the view across the Bay then he kneels down on the floor. He has to struggle to attain a state of meditation but his mind wanders off to dark places and he finds himself disoriented. Breathing, again, becomes difficult. His heart racing, he braces himself against the floor.

-oooOOOooo-

Ten minutes later he has washed his face, straightened his uniform and is setting up the connection to Starfleet Command. He could use one of the Captain's bone-crushing back slaps right now. He thinks about the heated discussion they had, several months ago, why exactly the silicon component of the short range sensor array needed to be upgraded on the molecular level at considerable cost and about the paper-work involved to get the upgrade approved by the science division on Alpha Centauri. He thinks about the Captain barging into the science lab, disrupting a delicate experimental setup yet again. He thinks about all the times the odds have been against them, all the careful statistical calculations Spock has gone through to calculate the probability of failure or success, only to have the Captain cut him short with the words: "It'll work, Spock."

He thinks about the Captain storming into the transporter room to make sure Spock is unharmed after his trip into an active Volcano, carelessly laughing it off as another one of Spock's eccentricities when Spock blurts out: "You let them see our ship," instead of a thank you.

Spock had expected to die.

He had not expected that his life was more important to the Captain than the Prime Directive. Or his career. Or, for that matter, the Captain's own life.

The comm-link beeps and he is pulled out of his thoughts.

"We are glad that you could join us, Commander, even if it is just by comm link. Doctor McCoy informed us that he put you on medical leave. Exhaustion, he said? Are you all right?"

What Spock wants to say is that Doctor McCoy has no idea about the intricacies of Vulcan physiology and that he is, as always, overreacting as far as Spock's health is concerned. He doesn't say so because he has no wish to get the Doctor into trouble and he thinks that maybe the doctor was right, after all.

"Merely a precaution, Admiral," he says.

"You disagree with his assessment? I hear you had a serious difference of opinion."

Ah, the Admiral, always fishing for trouble.

Pictures spring up on his screen as more Admirals are connecting and Spock is suddenly glad that he does not have to bear their scrutiny in close proximity. It will make it easier to say, what needs to be said. He has the doctor to thank for that, too.

"A discussion about the nature of consent in a medical setting which was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties involved."

"I heard he hit you."

Spock raises one eyebrow in calculated surprise.

"If he did so I suffered no ill effects."

The problem with the Admiralty is that most of them were appointed during Admiral Marcus' tenure. Many of them are incompetent or were Marcus' cronies. Others, like Pike, were killed when Khan attacked Fleet Headquarters. Spock knows that there are hard questions to answer and heads will have to roll. The first question to ask is why no ship came to the Enterprise's help when she was threatened by an unauthorized Dreadnought Class Cruiser staffed by non-Starfleet personnel, despite several requests for assistance.

The "debriefing" takes four hours. At the end Spock is running on adrenalin alone but certain that he is backed up by several Admirals including Nogura, who is rumoured to be Marcus's replacement.

He turns off the screen and sits staring out of the window, motionless for several minutes. Messages have been piling up for him and he spends several more hours to answer them and to make calls. The Enterprise will need a complete refit and Engineer Scott is making plans for a redesign of the warp core that will eliminate the danger of a misalignment and make the warp core more accessible. According to Scotty no more dying will be done in the warp core behind doors that cannot be opened. Spock wholeheartedly agrees and has promised to get all necessary changes approved.

He finally shuts down the PADD on several more incoming messages.

Outside a sunny day has turned into dusk. Spock leaves his room to check in on the Captain. He sees Carol Marcus sitting by his bedside, deep in thought and looking rather forlorn, and decides not to intrude.

The Captain looks worse than in the morning.

Two days ago Spock saw his Captain die. Now he will have to see him die all over again.

It is customary for Vulcans to retrieve a person's katra when death is close. Spock had melded with Admiral Pike after Pike was mortally wounded. But Pike had slipped away too fast and Spock remains uncertain if human katras can be retrieved at all.

Now, that there is no wall of transparent aluminum between him and the Captain he wonders if Jim has an eternal soul, too, and, if so, he has to let that soul slip away into the void.

When Carol Marcus leaves 5 minutes later he enters the room. For a moment his hand hovers over his Captain's face then he gently puts his fingers on the meld points…

He jolts awake and withdraws his hand from the Captain's face. No more than a few seconds can have passed but he has lost track of time and he feels disoriented again. There is a memory of the Captain's face in his mind. No, more than a memory - an imprint, vibrantly alive. Bright laughter rings in his ears. The Captain, looking at him across the chess set, pleased, warmth in his eyes, and Spock trying to muster and show his irritation at having lost, but not quite able to pull it off. Because he is pleased at the Captain's proficiency.

Then the vision is gone and he looks down at his dying friend. Only the warmth remains.

Spock retreats to his room to set up a connection with New Vulcan.

-oooOOOooo-

His counterpart looks old and worn. Older even than two days ago when the old man warned him about Khan.

"At great cost," he repeats and Spock shudders.

"But in your universe the Captain went on to live a full life?" he asks.

The old man smiles, sadly.

"He died too soon, but that is another story entirely. No, you misunderstand. In my universe I was the one who died from radiation poisoning."

Spock still tries to wrap his mind around that when the old man continues:

"My Captain saw a way to retrieve my katra which ultimately led to my body being restored in ways I cannot go into. But he sacrificed too much to save my life."

And while Spock still considers what 'too much' means exactly and how Spock could have been bodily resurrected the old man goes on:

"I know that since the destruction of Vulcan you have not valued you own life as you should."

Clearly, Spock thinks, his counterpart has been talking to Uhura.

"I ask you to be mindful of your own life and well-being in the future. What happens to you has repercussions on the people close to you. Do not continue to underestimate your Captain's desire to see you alive and safe. He beat the Kobayashi Maru test. He has shown, consistently, that he is at his best when the odds are against him. He will find a way but in the end he is mortal, like we all are."

"You speak as if you know that he will survive. At the moment his condition is critical."

"Spock, my Captain once told me that I was closer to him than anyone else in the universe. That I knew his mind. Do you know your Captain's mind, Spock?"

Spock is stunned. Does he know the Captain's mind? He shakes his head.

"I told Jim that I had been and always would be his friend. Spock, human lives are fragile and short. If you feel for your Captain what I felt for mine I urge you to not waste your time dwelling on the past. It is all I have to say for now."

ooo

What is the past? Vulcan being destroyed? 6 billion katras scattered. Irretrievably lost. And his own feeling that one more life, one more Vulcan katra does not truly matter. That if it would somehow join with the ones already lost it would be of little consequence. That if Spock would sacrifice his life, the sacrifice would be a small one.

What his counterpart is saying is, that it is of consequence to the Captain. That Spock's life matters. It is the reason they are here now. The Captain dying in another room. Because he sacrificed himself so that Spock did not have to.

ooo

Spock's hand hovers over his Captain's face, but in the end he just settles the tip of his fingers on the back of his Captain's hand.

"I have been and always shall be your friend," he whispers.  
He stays like that for a long time, feeling his friend's life-force thrum distantly beneath his skin.


	2. T'hy'la (T'hai'la)

**ooo**

 **Of Friendship and Wormholes**

by gammacorvi

 _ **-Chapter 2-**_

 _ **T'hy'la (T'hai'la)**_

The hospital room that the Captain has occupied for the last three weeks is empty. The bed is stripped.

For a moment Spock's world tilts, nauseatingly. He notices that the Captain's PADD and a few other personal items that were scattered across the room are gone. The 3D chess set that occupied the table in the corner likewise. A small piece of red granite lies on the floor. Spock retrieves it, his hand not quite steady.

"Spock. I didn't expect you here that early."

The Doctor has stepped up behind him. His eyebrows are drawn together and he looks positively murderous.

"I'm afraid that Jim's gone," he states.

He must have seen some emotion in Spock's eyes because he adds:

"Good God, man, I didn't mean it like that. Bloody Section 31 picked him up."

ooo

It takes a while for Spock to get the whole story because the Doctor is even more emotional than usual and his speech is full of expletives.

"They're going to make a lab rat out of him," he says in the end. "It's the very thing I tried to spare him from. But apparently they sent in some sweet talking Section 31 operative last night and she convinced him that it was all for the greater good and that they would save millions of dying babies across the Alpha Quadrant, with new advances in tissue regeneration, if they could just put him in a scanner and record every tiny detail of his recovery process."

He comes up for some air and continues.

"Do you have any idea what they will do to him? He has no idea what he's getting into. They're going to wire him up and tie him down and stick sensors into him and it's going to go on until they're satisfied they have all the data they need. Which is going to be YEARS. Jim is never going to command a starship again. By the time they're done with him he's going to be a wreck. Do you think they care about his overall recovery? They'll… "

"Surely, Doctor…"

"No, you listen to me you damn green-blooded hobgoblin. This is Section 31 we're talking about. They made him sign a waiver which means that he essentially threw away any human rights he has for the greater good of humanity. They can keep him indefinitely if that's what they want, and believe me, with Khan's blood coursing through his system they will want to run tests on him until well into the next millennium. That's the kind of ethics they employ. I know. I've been there. I've worked with them for 6 months back in the Academy days. I almost quit Starfleet over it. And there is nothing… "

He stabs a finger in the air repeatedly and Spock notices that he is close to tears.

"... absolutely nothing that we can do. Even with Marcus gone… "

He goes on while Spock's brain explores possible avenues of retrieving the Captain. He has no doubt that what the Doctor says is essentially true. He has had enough dealings with Section 31 over the years to confirm that at least some of their activities are in zones that are ethically murky at best.

His communicator vibrates and when he takes it out he sees that there is a video message from the Captain.

"If you will excuse me, Doctor," he says and steps outside the room.

"And already you have other priorities," the Doctor calls out in a stricken voice. "Let's just abandon Jim. He can go hang himself, right? Life goes on… "

The message was recorded in one of the tiny spaceport communication cubicles on Luna. Jim is rubbing a hand over his face then stares into the camera with bloodshot and earnest eyes.

"So, Spock," he says, "I guess we'll not be seeing each other for a while."

There is a strange undertow in his words that Spock can't read.

"Looks like I essentially signed away my human rights for the foreseeable future."

There is more face rubbing and a rather brief, lopsided grin.

"Bones is going to tell you I have no idea what I got myself into and maybe he's right. You know that girl, Lucille Harewood, the one her father infused with Khan's blood? She's been in their _care_ …"

He spits out the word.

"... ever since. There've been some problems and if they can get an adequate replacement they'll release her and she'll be all right. I hope."

He looks to the side taking a few long breaths until he comes back to the camera, staring into it with bitter resolve.

"I don't know how this will all turn out. I didn't buy that crap about the common good, but you never know. I need you to locate that girl and her family and put her under Vulcan protection. You guys are the only people I trust at the moment. You hear me? That's an order Mr. Spock. And take care of our ship. Don't let her fall into the wrong hands. I know I can count on you."

He hesitates for a moment.

"Kirk out."

The picture on Spock's comm screen winks out and there is silence.

Spock rubs the red granite he still holds in his hand. It has an inclusion of tiny, delicate crystals on one side. Spock picked it up on a pilgrimage to Mount Seleya on Vulcan years ago, when he was still planning to attempt the Kolinahr. Now it is a priceless artifact that he gave to his Captain last week.

The Captain had taken it and listened to its story without visible emotion.

"Thank you, Spock," he finally said, folding the stone in his right hand, his thumb sliding back and forth over the rough surface.

Then he looked up to meet Spock's eyes.

"We've been through the apocalypse together, my friend," he said.

The stone had been resting on the Captain's night table ever since and more than once Spock had seen him explore the rough surface with restless fingers. That he left it behind, seemingly discarded on the floor is a message that Spock has no trouble understanding.

ooo

The shunts and ports that have been installed in Jim's body to interface with the sensors in the medical lab are not supposed to hurt. At least this is what he is being told on a daily basis.

"This does not hurt, does it?"

"This is not supposed to hurt."

"This technology is completely painless."

"Does this hurt? Don't worry, it'll be over soon!"

On the Enterprise medical examinations are always non-invasive. Jim has never seen a scanner that actually has to touch the skin to work. He has had to learn the hard way that that kind of equipment is regarded as hopelessly inadequate for the purposes of Section 31's scientists and researchers. Here the scanners are supposed to be inserted _into_ the body, to be considered reliable. He supposes what's really going on is that they're all sadists and he tells them so from time to time, but they only laugh at him, delightedly, as if he has made a good joke.

If Jim had been born in later times he would have recognized the implants as something very similar to Borg technology. That raises interesting questions about the true origins of Section 31's technology and the space-time continuum that likely are never going to be asked or answered.

In the meantime Jim is only certain that the technology implanted in his body is painful. It hurts with a deep, constant throb that wears on his mental energy.

He is quite sure they would give him painkillers if he asked for them, but he does not, because he is already sedated much of the time and hardly feels like himself anymore.

Jim has always been a physically active person but here he is only permitted two brief walks along a brightly lit corridor, decorated with colourful pieces of art that he does not understand. Possibly Spock would be able to appreciate them if he were here.

Occasionally when his brain gets too muddled from the drugs, he asks himself why the hell he agreed to this. He should be back on the Enterprise by now, working on the refit, Spock at his side. He heard Spock and Scotty had planned a complete redesign of the warp core but he was whisked away before he ever heard the details. So he's trying to work out the modifications in his head, wondering what they have come up with.

This is what holds him up. That eventually this will end and that he will be able to go back to the Enterprise.

Alternatively he entertains himself with desperate daydreams in which Spock or Bones or possibly Scotty, because he's good at last minute interventions, show up and somehow manage to make the situation more bearable. It is, however, not something he is counting on. Being here, of his own free will and not in a life-threatening situation, there is no reason to wait for someone to come and save him, is there?

He regresses into a mental state were the abandonment he experienced in his childhood seems more real than the achievements and the friendships he forged as a grown man.

ooo

Earthbound Spaceport comes into view on the starboard side. It is a commercial Space Station in orbit around Pluto and an important port of call on the way in and out of the solar system. Spock has discovered that it is also the location for Section 31's medical facilities, that are partly located on Earthbound and are partly drilled into Pluto bedrock, out of sight and out of the reach of prying sensors. It had taken the combined effort of the Doctor's connections in the medical community and Ambassador Sarek's considerable political clout to bring Spock here.

The process was maddeningly slow and Spock had to tell himself that even if the Captain's position at the moment was possibly uncomfortable it was likely not in any way life-threatening. Or as the Doctor had put it:

"Oh, believe me, Spock, they're going to take very good care of their new specimen. It's not the danger to his life I'm worried about."

Spock is here under a new and obscure clause of the treaty between the Federation and New Vulcan, that gives the Vulcan Science Academy the right to send observers to any scientific project that might further the rebuilding of the Vulcan race and culture.

Even so Spock's inclusion into the Khan Study, as it is unofficially called, had been fought by Section 31 every step of the way and it had needed the intervention of his father, Admiral Nogura and some unnamed gray eminence, who had been close to Admiral Marcus, to get him to where he is now.

Spock is well aware that his position is uncertain and can be terminated at a moments notice if he makes a single misstep. There is no legal action any of them can take, because what Section 31 does is perfectly legal, if unethical. A problem Spock intends to address once the Captain's well-being is secured.

Spock steeples his hands in front of his face to calm himself. It has been eight weeks and Spock's half-human brain has been worrying itself sick with all the ways the Captain might have come to irreparable harm while his First Officer was unavailable. Even worse, the Captain might believe that Spock has given up on him and is not coming.

His counterpart, forever meddling in the affairs of time and space has given him an account of Admiral Kirk's death in the other universe. Evidently the Admiral was lost while encountering a space phenomenon called the Nexus and subsequently declared dead. Many years later another Captain of the Enterprise, Captain Picard came across the Nexus and found the Admiral, suspended in time, still alive. Spock's counterpart, however, tragically never saw him again. The Admiral died, helping Captain Picard in some ways Spock's counterpart does not specify.

The old man recounts the story in a matter-of-fact way but Spock can feel the bone-deep hurt accompanying it.

Spock's loyalty to his Captain runs deep. It has grown along the fault lines of several life and death encounters into what it is today. Now Spock vows, not to any higher power, but to himself that he will never give up on his Captain. That he will strive to either recover his Captain's life or his katra, whatever is possible. He is well aware that a vow like this can become a hard thing to uphold in the future. But he would rather chase ghosts across the galaxies then give up on something that might not be lost.

ooo

One day, when Jim is taken out of the tank he spends much of his time suspended in, surfacing from his drug induced state, the gel cleaned out of his eyes and his vision clearing, Spock is standing there, straight as always, hands resting behind his back, looking disapproving and slightly appalled. Jim is so ridiculously grateful to see him that he starts to cry.

Because this is Spock the situation is neither embarrassing nor awkward, the way it would be with anybody else. He rests his hand reassuringly on Jim's shoulder, not saying a word, dark eyes calm and steady. Later they take a walk along the corridor, Spock's hand resting lightly under Jim's elbow while he is making pointed remarks about the artists of said art, all of whom he has apparently studied. Jim is not surprised.

He is supposed to go back in the tank for the night but Spock intervenes and a verbal fight ensues in which the head researcher, the tall, blond woman that Jim secretly calls Dr. Mengele and Spock are screaming at each other. By that time the drugs have worn off enough that Jim understands that Spock is satisfied about his physical condition but has grave concerns about his mental state.

He has never heard Spock scream at anyone before.

Later, over a game of chess he asks Spock why he bothers. Spock looks at him as if he has lost his mind and Jim has to clarify the question twice before Spock glares at him and says:

"Because you are my Captain and as your First Officer I'm responsible for your well-being."

Then he pauses and, his gaze softening slightly he adds:

"And because you are my friend."

Of course, Spock wins the game.

ooo

In the morning Spock is gone and Jim is devastated but does his best not to show it. Apparently Dr. Mengele pulled some strings and had him removed. By that time Jim's mental condition has improved so much that he realizes that he had been kept in a constant drug induced haze. He is suddenly very scared. Dr. Mengele is inserting the sensors into their ports, giving her customary little speech about exploring the impact of Khan's blood on his mental functions once they are done with this battery of tests. She calls it 'exploring the impact of Khan's savagery' and she is obviously fascinated by the subject. This is when Jim finally realizes that he has no control whatsoever over his fate. And that she has no intention of ever letting him go. He feels the sudden urge to fight his way out of here but manages to suppress it, right up until he is in the tank and the drugs hit his system. Then he loses it.

ooo

They take him out of the tank and restrain him on the metal table that takes up the middle of the examination room, because apparently he has an allergic reaction to the drug. It is the worst experience of Jim's life. Titanium reinforced straps hold down his body and there is no wiggle room, no give. Jim, slightly claustrophobic at the best of times, almost panics. Thankfully the episode is short, because as soon as they turn their backs he feels the telltale tingle of a transporter field and a second after finds himself unrestrained and in a heap on the pad of the transporter room of the Enterprise.

A moment after Bones fusses over him, passing the sensor of the tricorder over his body, telling him to keep still. His head is in Uhura's lap and Spock is hovering, saying:

"My apologies, Captain. Plan A deteriorated so quickly through my own fault that we had no other recourse but to implement plan B."

It is, hands down, the most glorious and joyful moment of his life.

ooo

The Enterprise is still in Luna Shipyards but Scotty's improved transporter and Chekhov's skill in hacking through Section 31's beaming shields, penetrating Pluto bedrock and locking on to the right target, did the trick.

Section 31, of course, log an official report and threaten legal action but Spock talks to Sarek and the whole thing ends up, somehow, going away. Spock refuses ever after to tell how it was accomplished. Jim assumes the Vulcans threatened to go to war, but he never finds out what really went down.

"Plausible deniability," Spock tells him in his best need-to-know voice and Jim decides to let it go. If he can't trust Spock, who can he trust?

Bones has a hell of a time to remove the implants and curses all the way to the operating room. The procedures are excruciatingly painful, but Jim is so happy to be back with his family on the Enterprise that he would put up with any amount of pain.

Somehow he feels reborn.

ooo

Spock seeks out his Captain shortly after he goes through the first rounds of surgery to remove the implants.

The Captain is in pain but in good spirits. It makes Spock happy, although he would never admit this to anyone.

"I bring greetings from the Harewood family," he says. "They are among a group of humans who have relocated to New Vulcan to aid in the rebuilding effort. I am told that they are under the protection of my father."

The Captain thanks him and asks him to take a seat.

Spock holds out his hand instead.

"I believe this is yours," he says, holding out a piece of red Vulcan granite with a small inclusion of crystals on one side.

The Captain takes it and they look at each other.

"Ki'nam-tor nash-veh heh kwon-sum dungau nam-tor t'hai'la t'du," Spock says and the Captain smiles.

"You are my friend, too. I will never forget what you did for me."

 ** _Chapter Notes:_**

Ki'nam-tor nash-veh heh kwon-sum dungau nam-tor t'hai'la t'du.

(I have been and always shall be your friend)

courtesy of

ooo

"With regard to the recent letters about how T'hy'la is pronounced, I think I can provide the definitive answer. Just after the novelization of ST:TMP appeared, Gene Roddenberry was on holiday in Scotland, visiting Janet Quarton, who for many years ran Star Trek clubs in Britain. There had been quite a bit of discussion in K/S circles about this very useful word, so I took the chance to ask him how it was pronounced. He replied "TUH-HIGH-LA," as best I can render it, the first syllable very short, the second stressed. Since several Scottish fans were present, we have always used that form. I suppose the man who made up the word should have the final say."  
( Vulcans-How-would-one-pronounce-Thyla-Is-there-any-explanation-given-for-it-beyond-the-friend-brother-lover)


	3. Shadows of Khan

**ooo**

 **Of Friendship and Wormholes**

by gammacorvi

 _ **-Chapter 3-**_

 _ **Shadows of Khan**_

Scotty finds Spock at the access door to the warp core, one hand on the transparent aluminum, the other curled in a loose fist behind his back.

It is _that_ very door and Scotty is on a mission to erase every last reminder of that ill-fated day from his beloved warp core. So he doesn't hesitate, but says:

"Sorry, Commander, we have work to do."

He makes shooing gestures with both hands and Spock, without a word, steps aside.

The Captain is standing on a walkway, 20 feet above, in the middle of an animated conversation with Chekhov who explains something, using mostly his hands.

Spock looks up at them. Then he gathers his hands behind his back and departs, every movement of his body neat and economical.

Scotty very much respects Spock. In fact, from the first time he saw him on the bridge of the Enterprise he has taken a special liking to him. He is consequently not fooled by Spock's impassivity and lack of emotion, especially not since he was there, when Spock was kneeling in front of that door not so long ago. Some instinct told him that he would be doing the Captain and the Commander a disservice if he didn't let them say their good-byes without a whole bunch of people looking on. Maybe that was a mistake but he doesn't think so, because the relationship between them has much improved since then. It can, in fact, almost be described as friendly and Scotty is very pleased with the outcome. Everyone needs an associate. He wouldn't know what to do without Keenser, so there you go.

He has discussed the warp core modifications in great detail with Spock and seems to remember that he promised him a complete redesign that would make the warp core more accessible and eliminate the possibility of a misalignment. Actually, he remembers saying that no more dying would be done in the warp core behind doors that could not be opened, a statement that was received by Spock with some gratitude. It has been a challenge to make good on that promise, but Chekhov has helped with the necessary calculations and Scotty thinks they have come up with something that will revolutionize warp core design in general.

So he gets to work.

ooo

"What is it, Spock?"

The Captain is sitting at his desk in the ready room and doesn't even look up. There is a definite note of irritation in his voice but Spock is not deterred. He has made sure that the door to the bridge closed behind him, because these little confrontations have become everyday occurrences and it is best to deal with them in private.

The Captain's recovery has been a recovery in stages, compounded by his traumatic experiences at the hands of Section 31.

"Are you satisfied with the Captain's progress?" Spock had asked the Doctor not too long ago.

"Sure," was the answer. "He's actually doing better than I expected. Give him time, Spock. He'll be back to normal in no time. He's a pretty tough customer."

Spock is unsure what 'normal' constitutes for the Captain. The Doctor's statement is vaguely worrying.

"Are you okay, Spock? I know Jim's a handful to deal with at the moment. If you… "

"Not at all, Doctor. I will let you know if there are any problems."

Spock much prefers to deal with the Captain alive than dead. He is immensely grateful that things have turned out the way they did.

"I have come to remind you that it is time for supper."

The Captain is completely immersed in the Enterprise refit. He forgets to eat, drink and sleep. The Doctor has assured Spock that this is a temporary problem and that the Captain will soon be able to take care of himself once again.

"Jim Kirk? He was never able to take care of himself," Nyota said, when he mentioned the Doctor's words to her, but the smile on her face was indulgent and she has been taking frequent meals with the Captain, since he complains that Spock is not a good companion at mealtimes.

In fact, this morning he said: "You eat one leaf of lettuce and those yucky, purplish Vulcan things and that's it. It's disgusting Spock."

It is fortunate that Nyota was not there to hear it.

Spock is usually impervious to his insults, but this one had a different quality. The Captain had hit him where it hurt most.

Take those yucky, purplish Vulcan things. Plomeeks, a Vulcan delicacy, sadly now extinct. Spock's father had been able to obtain a few that had been kept by an Andorian trader in cold storage and presented them to his son as a present. Spock had been savouring them until the Captain's remark. It had been a hurt quite unlike anything else Spock has ever experienced because it came from someone he had trusted with his life and soul.

Now he looks at his Captain, wearily. He has to assume that the Captain has no idea what he said this morning or of its impact. In that case it is a blunder that can be attributed to his recovery process and, as such, should be forgiven.

"I don't have time, Spock" the Captain says, distracted. "Can't you see that I'm in the middle of something?"

"Jim," Spock begins, and there is an unmistakable note of affection in his voice, "it would be advisable…"

The Captain looks up sharply, his eyes blazing and Spock almost takes a step back.

"Mind your own business, Mr. Spock, I'm sick of your half-breed interference. Do you hear?"

Then he goes back to look at his PADD as if nothing had happened.

Spock leaves the ready room. He makes it to the turbolift and lets the door close before he stretches out a hand to steady himself.

The turbolift takes him to engineering and Spock walks to the aft storage facility before he discovers that he has no idea what he is doing. He stops in front of the weapons locker, head bent, oblivious of two ensigns, who give him a strange look in passing.

It takes him a full five minutes to process what just happened. Then he makes his way to sickbay.

ooo

The Captain sits on the bed in one of the private examination rooms, his legs dangling, his hands balled to fists at his side.

"Spock," he says to the shadowy figure in the corner and the strain in his voice is hard to bear, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I just… I don't know what happened…"

Spock knows what had happened. The blazing eyes he had looked into in the Captain's ready room had not belonged to Jim, they had belonged to Khan.

The Captain lifts his head and their eyes meet.

"Just shoot me now, Spock," he says in despair. "If this has something to do with Khan's blood or something, then I just can't control it. I'd be better off 'd all be better off with me dead."

Spock steps close and puts a hand on the Captain's shoulder. He has a good idea of what he is doing. It might be foolish but he would much rather know what he is dealing with right away.

The look in the Captain's eyes changes, just a fraction of a second before he lunges at Spock.

Spock falls back and the Captain's elbow hits him squarely in the face. Then they are both on the floor. It takes all of Spock's strength to subdue his friend, Spock's knee in the small of his back, one wrist pinned between his shoulderblades, head squashed against the floor. And he is still struggling. If this were really Khan, of course, Spock would have no chance.

The Doctor's rushes in, hypospray with a tranquilizer in hand and but Spock, sharply, says:

"No!"

And over the Doctor's objections he presses his fingers against the Captain's face.

The meld does not last more than a few seconds, then Jim goes limp under him and Spock gets up, abruptly, his face very pale.

"Spock!" the Doctor exclaims, trying to touch him but Spock takes a quick step back, bends over and starts throwing up.

-oooOOOooo-

"How are you?"

"I am functioning, Captain. Thank you for your concern."

"What happened?"

"Presumably a mental imprint of Khan's katra. I can assure you that it is fully removed from your mind. But to make sure I hope you will permit me to perform another mind-meld later. It will be as shallow as possible and you should not feel any discomfort. Alternatively I have asked my father to provide a Vulcan healer. There are several in the San Francisco area that..."

"Nope. I'm fine with you. I don't need anyone else rummaging around in there. Are you sure you can stand it, though? After everything…"

Spock's face doesn't change. He looks like a Vulcan Sphinx, mysterious and unreachable.

"It is not a problem, Captain."

"And what about you? Does that mean you carry a piece of Khan's katra around?"

"Not at all, Captain. It was merely an imprint. It will completely dissolve, given time. Most of it was already discharged."

"Spock…"

"If you will excuse me, Captain. I will need some time to meditate."

ooo

The Captain is stricken. He also, apparently, decided that all the Kirk-drama is too much for anyone to deal with and he has been keeping a very careful distance - from everyone.

As a consequence he has been extremely easy to deal with and Spock has had ample time to meditate and rest. After the strenuous experiences of the last months it has been a much needed reprieve.

It is only after Spock brings up the plans for the upcoming 5-year-mission that the Captain looks at him with haunted eyes and asks him, his voice strained and barely audible:

"You're going to stay? I've been expecting your resignation."

Spock looks at him, taken completely aback and more than a little hurt. For once his emotions are clearly visible on his face.

"You want me to resign as your First Officer? If my services have been inadequate…"

The Captain covers his face with both hands:

"No, Spock, dammit, that's not what I meant. I just… Look, Spock… I'm sorry… You're my friend and I've been treating you like shit. I don't know how to make up for it. I'm not good at this sort of thing."

"On the contrary. Your friendship is welcome and I value it greatly. Events have transpired that were out of our control and you were not at fault. You have done your utmost to set things right again. I would be happy to continue to serve you."

The Captain looks at him, stunned.

"Still, I would like to make it up to you, somehow…"

Spock raises an eyebrow and says, tiredly:

"Jim, if you would manage to stay alive and out of trouble it is all that I ask for."


	4. Temporal Mechanics, Part One

Notes: After Anton Yelchin died I wanted to write a story featuring Pavel Chekhov. This is what came of it.

* * *

 **ooo**

 **Of Friendship and Wormholes**

By gammacorvi

 _ **-Chapter 4-**_

 _ **Temporal Mechanics, Part 1**_

 _ooo_

"Where's Chekhov?" the Captain asks.

The away team was nine members strong when they left, now there are only eight. Only one of them manages to meet the Captain's eyes.

David Cho, a bright young ensign who has been with the Enterprise all through the Khan affair, clears his throat.

"Sir, we assume that he is dead. We had to break off the search when the temporal rift started closing."

"You assume."

There is a dangerous edge in the Captain's voice. The away team is visibly uncomfortable. When he takes one step closer several of them recoil.

Spock casts a quick glance at the Captain. His crew is not as a general rule afraid of him, quite the contrary actually. Their reaction is unusual .

Ensign Cho is the only one who stands his ground.

"Yes, sir."

"Lieutenant Baker, what do you have to say?"

Lieutenant Baker was in command of the away mission. Now he starts sputtering.

"Captain, the temporal rift was closing, we almost didn't make it back. We could have been stranded!"

"So you stranded Ensign Chekhov."

"He's bound to be dead, Captain. Believe me, there was nothing more we could do. The weather conditions… The predators…"

"There were predators?"

"Yes, Sir...I mean…"

The Captain doesn't let him finish the sentence but makes a dismissive gesture with his right hand.

"Mr. Spock, did the temporal rift close completely?"

"Yes, Captain. There is no trace left. The away team returned just in time."

"Can we reopen it?"

"Unlikely, Captain, but there are options that we can explore."

"Let's get to it."

"Captain," Ensign Cho says, "When we entered the temporal rift the first time it took us right back to the Enterprise."

The Captain looks at him, questioning.

"We had to turn around and reenter the rift before it took us to the other side."

The Captain shakes his head.

"I can't see how that's relevant right now."

"Yes, Sir. I'm sorry, Sir. I just thought it was worth mentioning."

The Captain and Spock exit the shuttle bay, leaving a shattered away team behind.

"This is not the way a temporal rift would behave," Spock says.

"It doesn't mean anything, Spock. They probably made a mistake. Let's just concentrate on getting Chekhov back, okay?"

"Very well, Captain."

ooo

They are 18 months into the 5-year-mission and the Captain has earned the reputation of never leaving a member of the crew behind. Ever.

There have been some close calls. The worst one that Spock remembers, was the away team that got stranded on a Y class planet, when a solar storm from the systems binary star interfered with the transporter. The environment was heating up, because a major seismic event had activated several volcanoes. Retrieval was deemed too dangerous.

In a last ditch effort the Captain had sent down Spock, in a shuttle, alone, because according to the Doctor, Spock would be the only one on board able to withstand the temperatures while wearing a protective suit.

As it turned out the situation had not been quite as dire as expected. The away team was treated for burns and Spock had been just fine. Spock is aware, though, that had the Enterprise been commanded by another Captain the away team could have been abandoned, to not endanger any more lives.

This, at least is what Starfleet protocol recommends. Of course, the Captain has never been big on protocol.

ooo

"Does anyone have a solution for me?"

"Captain, there is no known way of breaching the space-time continuum. Applying concentrated converging tachyon beams from three different sources is considered a possibility, although this is just theory. We would need three constitution class starships to achieve this, but the nearest ones are the Farragut and the Nightingale, respectively three weeks and two months away at maximum warp."

Here is the deal: The Farragut is currently patrolling the perimeter of the Neutral Zone. Relations with both the Klingons and the Romulans are strained. The Nightingale, a medical research and supply vessel is delivering medical supplies to several outlying colonies and medical aid to a space station that has been hit by an unknown virus.

Spock sees the realization of the impossibility to withdraw either ship from its mission hit the Captain. Then his gaze takes on that focused, stubborn quality that means he is plotting something and failure is not an option.

Spock, forever more pragmatic than his friend, does his best to give solutions where no solutions should be possible.

Now the Captain looks at him, pleading with Spock to give him _something_ to work with, without so many words.

The problem is that little is known about space-time anomalies. Few of them have been encountered and only a handful properly scanned and documented. Their scientific methods and instruments, logical thinking in itself, designed to occupy a specific place in the space-time continuum, are imperfectly suited to understand the nature of anomalies of time and space. Spock currently regards space-time as a vast river, its water full of swirls and eddies, the flow faster in the middle of the stream than towards the banks, tributaries branching out like branches on a tree. Who knows where it will end, in what vast ocean of time. This however is just an imperfect theory, a picture in Spock's mind and the truth remains unseen. His contemplations are complicated by his conviction that their own timeline is nothing more than a recent off-branch of a wider stream, created when his counterpart opened a black hole and ripped open space and time.

Ah, yes, his counterpart, good-naturedly meddling in the affairs of the universe, ran afoul of the forces of revenge and evil personified in one man and altered all of their destinies. Whether for the better or worse, senselessly or for a specific purpose remains to be seen.

Red matter.

An artificial substance that Spock's counterpart used to insert into a supernova. And action that ripped apart the fabric of space and time. A volatile substance, which manufacture is currently outlawed. A few drops have been preserved in the Katric Ark on New Vulcan, something that is technically not approved under Federation law and only known to a few.

Red matter will not help them recover Chekhov. The Enterprise's science lab however holds a small container of decalithium isotopes. The very substance that is used to manufacture red matter. Spock's own research has shown that decalithium has a barely measurable impact on the flow of time. Spock wonders what will happen if the decalithium isotopes are brought into contact with the region of space still weakened by a recent temporal rift.

Spock and Scotty run the computer simulations.

"No, Captain," Sulu explains, "The rift doesn't need to have a specific size for the shuttle to go through. Actually, any size will do. Even an opening the size of a pinprick will pull us through."

"The shuttle will not be harmed," Spock adds, when he sees the Captain's face.

They deploy the decalithium. But by the time the rift reopens, 12 hours later, Spock is not sure if the decalithium actually had any effect or if this region of space is prone to close and reopen the rift at random intervals.

ooo

"You and me, Sulu," the Captain says.

"Yes, sir."

"Captain," Spock interjects, "May I point out that neither you nor Lieutenant Sulu have any experience in applied temporal mechanics. This rift will likely close again and you will find yourselves stranded on the other side. In that case it would be advisable to take advantage of my expertise… "

"I need you to take care of the ship, Spock."

"Lieutenant Sulu is singularly qualified to take care of the ship as he has demonstrated on multiple occasions. My specific set of skills is best employed at your side."

 _My Captain, Spock's counterpart says, had the most annoying habit of ordering me to stay behind on the ship and face the most dire situations on his own. Whether this was because he feared for my safety or the safety of the ship, or whether he genuinely prefered to deal with a given circumstance on his own never became clear to me. Invariably he would get himself into trouble and need to be saved, sometimes at great cost. I trust you have already observed the same propensity toward personal disaster in your own Captain?_

"Mr. Spock… "

"Captain."

Silence.

"Mr. Sulu, you have the conn."

"Aye,sir."

ooo

A chill wind blows across the mountainside.

A standard issue emergency shelter has been left behind by the original away team, anchored in a sheltered location. There is a vista into a large, forested river valley, tucked between high mountain ranges.

Spock checks the tricorder.

Chekhov got lost somewhere in that river valley. That there are alligator-like creatures living in shallow ponds beside the river is just an unconfirmed rumor.

"We should have gone out here the first time, instead of sending your scientists. You know how I love exploring."

If the Captain had followed his inclination for exploration, most of the senior bridge crew would have gone on the away mission. This is not recommended by Starfleet regulation. But Spock is inclined to indulge the Captain next time. His observations show, that if the Captain is involved, away missions tend to be more dangerous. But because of his superior set of skills in facing said situations, they also require less intervention from those left on the ship. All provided that he has Spock at his side, of course.

"I do, Captain."

"Any life sign readings?"

"Plenty of life signs, Captain, most of them indeterminate. No human life signs."

The Captain's face shows clearly that he is tempted to bring the Enterprise with her superior scanners through the rift. Of course, that is out of the question.

The temporal rift closes again on their second day on the planet. They spend three weeks exploring the river valley by foot and with the help of the shuttle, from the glaciers that feed the river, to the delta that empties into the sea. There is no sign of Chekhov. Not a single trace.

ooo

"We have to face the possibility that the temporal rift led us to a different time in the planet's history. There is no guarantee that the reopened rift even led us to the same timeline," says Spock.

"That had occurred to me. But then what about the shelter? If it's here doesn't that mean we're still in the same timeline?"

"This location might have been visited simultaneously by the crew of an Enterprise from another timeline or another universe altogether."

Temporal Mechanics. So much fun.

The Captain is worn out and gloomy. When Spock suggests a game of chess - it is well after dusk - he explodes:

"Hell, Spock, don't you have any feelings at all? We figure out that Chekhov is lost in time, we'll probably never be able to recover him. He's all alone, probably scared to death and you want to play chess!"

He has gotten up, a replicated sandwich half eaten on his plate, pacing restlessly. He has lost weight. Spock thinks that he might have forgotten that not just Chekhov is lost in time and space - so are they. They currently have no possibility to get back to the Enterprise.

The Captain leaves the shelter and it is probably fortunate that sliding doors cannot be slammed.

Spock takes the opportunity to meditate and regain his balance. The last three weeks have been rewarding in terms of scientific research but deeply frustrating considering their search mission.

Chekhov's bright face follows him into the meditations. The enthusiasm, the pronounced Russian accent, the genius at work - Spock does not want to believe that they will never recover him. He was there at the battle of Vulcan, held his ground when the Enterprise was caught in Earth's gravity well and almost crashed. Spock knows Chekhov saved both the Captain's and Scotty's life. He is part of the family. It is unthinkable to let go of him.

The Captain's assumption, that Spock does not have any feelings in the matter, hurts. They are friends. After all this time Spock thought the Captain knew him better.

ooo

Darkness falls, and when the Captain does not return Spock goes outside. Winter is coming and the nights are cold. A brisk wind is blowing down from the glacier.

Spock listens, but there is only the howling of the wind.

It takes him two hours to locate the Captain and by that time it is dark. Spock feels the night chill into his Vulcan bones although he is wearing a thermal uniform jacket.

They have worn a path a few hundred feet up the mountain to an outcrop that has served them as a lookout. Something strange has sprung up on the mountain side. In the bright light of the planet's moons Spock can see sparkling, crystalline structures, not quite man high.

"Spock!"

The Captain's voice is almost ripped away by the wind. He is crouched, uncomfortably, inside one of the structures and when Spock touches it, it is cold, like ice. The Captain seems to be trapped.

"Spock, I'm so glad to see you! Can you get me out of here?"

The frustration about Spock's assumed lack of feelings seems to be over. There is that to be grateful for.

Spock, initially is not worried. But soon it becomes clear that the crystalline structures, plantlike as they appear, are hard as rock. Unyielding, and impenetrable. The tricorder readings give mixed results and all Spock is sure about is that he can hack his way into one of these structures as little as he can hack his way through transparent aluminum. Spock gets a phaser and a laser cutter from the shelter, but none of them have any effect.

"Shit, Spock, I'm cold…"

Spock kneels in front of the structure that separates them, his hand on the cold crystal and is suddenly not anymore on an uninhabited planet, lost in an alternate universe, but back on the Enterprise, kneeling before a door of transparent aluminum.

He snaps out of it a moment later and sees the Captain staring at him, wide-eyed.

A new star blinks in the sky and Spock's tricorder beeps a notification. The temporal rift has reopened.

ooo

"You have to leave."

The Captain has been trapped in the structure for two days and three nights. He suffers from hypothermia and dehydration. Spock is unsure how long he can make it. He is strong, so maybe another night. But it is getting colder every day and Spock knows that time is running out.

"Mr. Spock, this is an order!"

The temporal rift is closing, rapidly. Spock thinks that if the Enterprise were still on the other side there would have been a shuttle or some form of communication, but there is nothing.

Spock has never openly defied an order before. But there is a first time for everything.

The Captain is begging, warning Spock that when he dies, Spock will be left here all alone.

Spock has been doing calculations on the tricorder when the solution finally becomes clear. It is like a ray of sunshine on a rainy day.

The Captain has been quiet for a while, half lying, half crouched against the inside wall of the structure, arms wrapped around himself. Now that Spock puts down the tricorder he looks up.

"Captain," Spock says, "I have reason to believe that this barrier, which seems to be part of a larger, plant-like structure will wither and die in just under three weeks."

The Captain tries to laugh but it doesn't come out well.

"You know, Spock," he whispers, "I'm never going to forgive you for this. I can't have a First Officer who doesn't follow my orders. You're fired."

Spock gives no indication that he has heard, even with his supposedly superior Vulcan hearing. His eyes return to the screen of the tricorder and his fingers rapidly scroll through the available data.

"Of course," he says, "we don't have three weeks. In fact I estimate that we will have to breach this barrier in approximately three hours to ensure your continued survival."

He continues working on the tricorder for several minutes until, at last, he gets up, holding the tricorder low, pointed toward the structure.

"I advise you to roll up and protect your head with your hands," he says.

The Captain does as he is told. There is a high-pitched, whining sound and then heavy chunks rain down around him, bruising his back and arms.

Spock makes an indeterminate sound and helps him up. He produces a bottle of water and holds it against his lips.

The Captain drinks and then fists his hand into Spock's thermal jacket and leans his forehead against his friend's shoulder. Spock, gracefully, does not protest.

"Damn, Spock, I never thought this would work," he says, his voice barely audible.

Spock drapes a blanket around his shoulders.

"Think I'm gonna keep you on as my First Officer after all."

"You will have my resignation as soon as we are back on the Enterprise. I am well aware that the trust between us has been breached. As you said, you cannot employ a First Officer who doesn't follow your orders."

The Captain tries to get up. But his legs feel like wet spaghetti. Spock prevents him from falling. The Captain clings to him and Spock adjusts his arm and grips him firmly around the waist.

"Don't feel like fighting with you," the Captain slurs and Spock has to strain to hear him.

"It is wise," he says.

They are only halfway down the path when the Captain's strength gives out and Spock has to carry him, slung across his shoulders, the rest of the way.

Back in the shelter it is warm. Spock undresses his Captain quickly and efficiently and wraps him in a heated blanket.

He gives him to drink and treats him with several hyposprays. Soon the shivering stops, the Captain's breathing evens out and he relaxes into the blanket.

Spock expects him to sleep, but he merely dozes off for an hour until he is awake again. Staring off into space.

"What a mess," he says softly, his voice considerably stronger than it was before. "I hope Chekhov has more sense than I did, to sit on the ground and get trapped."

He shivers again.

"God, Spock, that kid is so smart and resourceful. I bet he's still out there. We just have to find him."

"We will not abandon him," Spock says.

The Captain looks at him.

"As I could not abandon you. How is it that you ordered me to leave you behind, yet I have never seen you abandon anyone or anything?"

"The time will come," the Captain says and Spock is startled. The Captain cannot possibly know what Spock's counterpart told him about the Admiral's end.

"You expect me to abandon you?"

"I have always known that I will die alone."

"Then now is apparently not the time," Spock says, sensibly.

He wonders if he should say what is in his heart. He is inclined not to but knows that life has a way to turn around and make you regret the things you omitted.

"If you ever find yourself in the situation that you just described, or in any other circumstance that separates us, know that I will come for you."

The Captain turns slowly onto his side, facing him.

"I've never had a friend like you. Maybe with the exception of Bones, but that's a little different."

"Yes," Spock says.

"Hey, I tell you, Bones is as good as gold."

"I will take your word for it."

"I will not accept your resignation."

"It is a matter of trust, Captain."

"I trust you. I trust you to call me out on my bullshit. I trust you not to follow an order that you know is wrong because your Captain can't think straight."

He frees his hand from the blanket and lifts it in the Ta'al.

"My Vulcan is a bit rusty. What is the word for friend again?"

"T'hy'la."

The Captain obviously expects him to touch his hand as they did once before under other circumstances. It is a gesture not customary among Vulcans and carries with it an affinity that Spock knows the Captain is not aware of. Nevertheless he meets the Captain's hand with his own, their palms touching.

"Spock, my t'hy'la," the Captain says, "Thank you for saving my life, again."

Spock feels a great upsurge of emotion. His throat grows tight and he knows he would not be able to speak. The word t'hy'la denotes so much more than the human word friend. There are layers upon layers of friendship, loyalty, trust and love woven into it that reach back, deep into Vulcan's mythological past. A world that is no more. And yet some of it has survived in the things that go from heart to heart.

Spock retrieves his hand and sees the Captain's eyes droop. Soon he is asleep.

ooo

Two days after Spock retrieves his Captain from what they now call the 'ice flowers', winter arrives at their mountainside location. It starts to snow and while Spock still considers if the Captain is well enough and if it would be advisable to move into the valley, several feet have accumulated. By that time he thinks it might be less dangerous to remain, than to move. They are not exactly in a survival situation. The standard issue emergency shelter is durable under almost any condition. While it is a little cramped for an away team of nine, there is plenty of room for two people to not get on each others nerves. There are three bedrooms, a small science lab with an attached hydroponics section. Two replicators and a small matter/antimatter generator provide all necessities of life. They can make it on this planet indefinitely, if need be. And maybe Chekhov, in another timeline, will too.

ooo

"Are you cold?"

"I am comfortable, Captain."

"You don't look comfortable."

"I can assure you that I am fine. The temperature is exactly the same as on the Enterprise."

"Then why are you wearing thermal underwear?"

Spock looks up. Maybe the accommodations can be considered a bit cramped, after all, if his Captain knows what kind of underwear his First Officer is wearing.

"I always wear thermal underwear," he says, trying to preserve his dignity as well as possible.

The Captain mulls that over.

"You know, Spock, I think you're not comfortable on the Enterprise, either. What is it with you Vulcans? I thought the desert gets extremely cold at night. Shouldn't you be used to a wide range of temperatures?"

The Captain, of course, is right. Spock is uncomfortable with the human temperature range. Always has been so. He is aware that he feels cold more keenly than a full Vulcan, or a human. It is one of a number of things that he has learned to live with.

"I am half-human, Captain. My discomfort is possibly due to my hybrid physiology."

The Captain always gets uncomfortable when Spock's half-human, half-Vulcan heritage is brought up. In particular he seems to have a problem with the word 'hybrid'. Spock does not know why. Now he is silent for a long time.

"I'm sorry, Spock. I didn't mean any offence. I just usually think of you as Vulcan, and…"

He stops, looks mortified and closes his mouth.

"Captain," Spock says, "It seems that you expect a sensibility on my side toward the subject of my mixed heritage. I assure you that I am not offended in any way and that this sensibility does not exist."

"You can't tell me…"

Spock waits.

"Jeez, Spock, people are always making remarks about you. He's half this and half that. It's because he's a hybrid. It's because he's not even human. It;s because he's not full Vulcan. I've heard it from your own people, too. And I saw your face when I called you a half-breed. Remember?"

Of course, Spock remembers.

He turns around and faces his Captain.

"Slurs like this are to be expected. Every race we have encountered in the Galaxy displays a certain degree of racial superiority and looks down on those they regard as less. Even more so for those of us of mixed heritage. It is the opinion of a minority, though. I have no particular sensitivity toward the subject."

"Then why…?"

" _Mind your own business, Mr. Spock, I'm sick of your half-breed interference. Do you hear?"_

To hear his Captain say those words had been difficult. It was fortunate that he had realized, soon, that the Captain had not been himself in that moment.

"I urge you to forget the incident you are referring to, as I have done. You were not at fault."

"You trusted me."

"I know the limitations of putting trust in a human," Spock says, drily.

The Captain laughs.

Then he gets up and cranks up the temperature another three degrees and peels of his uniform jacket. Spock suppresses a sigh.

"I assure you, Captain, it is of no consequence…"

"It is of consequence to me," the Captain says with a tone that means that this conversation is over.

Spock turns back to his work.

ooo

Spock has reviewed the literature on temporal mechanics. It is full of theories and short on fact. It is, in fact, so short on fact that there are wildly differing theories about the true nature of the space-time continuum.

There are those who regard the Universe as a predetermined entity. One is free in one's actions but no matter which course one chooses, the outcome will always be the same. The future is already written. In that case Chekhov is already saved - or lost - no matter what they do.

Spock is quite sure that the rift they have encountered is of a temporal nature. That means they have been displaced in time. But since the planet occupies coordinates where no planet is to be found in their own time, one has to assume that the rift also is a doorway to an alternate universe. It essentially means that not only are they lost in time, they are also lost in one of any number of parallel universes.

The rift they encountered seems to be so unstable that it opens up into a new universe every time it reappears - which means that they themselves and Chekhov, are nothing more than specks of dust, afloat in an infinite multiverse, trying to reach shore.

Or, as the Captain put it:

"We are so fucked…"

And if they try to find their way back to their own universe and their own Enterprise they just might make things worse - traveling down one, and then another one, and another one of endless tributaries in the flow of time. Likely getting farther away from Chekhov, and the Enterprise with every action that they take.

But if there really are infinite parallel universes out there, there are also infinite possibilities how their story will play out in the end. In one universe Chekhov will be found, in another one he will remain lost, in yet another one - who knows…

Spock has two theories that are as yet untested. He thinks it will be possible, with the right equipment, to determine their Quantum signature. A subatomic resonance of matter, tracing back to the very beginnings of time, consistent in one universe but different in any other.

The other theory is, that if Spock is able to determine the quantum signature of any given object or living being in the multiverse, he might also be able, in conjunction with other data, like a person's DNA, to determine that object's or being's exact position in the multiverse. He is just looking for the right equation.

He is working on the latter problem, oblivious that the Captain is watching him.

"You know," the Captain says, "The whole temporal mechanics thing gives me a headache, but I'm pretty sure you made a mistake here."

He points the problem out on Spock's PADD.

Spock almost scoffs.

Jim is a Starship Captain. He is is very bright. Even for a Captain. He has a superior grasp of warp mechanics. But he is not a scientist. And this is Temporal Quantum Mechanics.

"I know, Spock." the Captain says, "But even you can make a mistake."

Spock checks his calculations and discovers that the Captain is right. He corrects the equation only to have the Captain show him a simpler, more elegant solution.

He looks up.

"You have been keeping things from me."

"It's just something Chekhov and I have been fiddling with."

Spock cannot believe that it is that simple. He has read the Captain's file. There are those who have called him a genius. But this…

He stares at his friend.

"Oh, come on, Spock. This was not meant as criticism. I think I know where you're going with this. Let me help."

They combine their resources and spend days immersed in quantum equations while the wind howls and the snow piles up on the mountains.

It is a new experience for Spock, who, despite his long standing relationship with Nyota, is of a solitary nature. He does not strive to be understood. And his own understanding of the woman that he loves is, as he well knows, imperfect.

He and the Captain are worlds apart and their relationship has been rife with misunderstandings. And yet, here the Captain follows him effortlessly into realms of pure mathematical thought. It is another way of communicating and Spock feels liberated.

ooo

The Captain has built a Quantum Scanner. From scratch. Spock helped, but he is not an engineer.

It is a crude instrument, likely not entirely accurate and Spock is working on calibrating it as best as possible.

The Captain, once the scanner is built, loses interest and leaves the fine-tuning and actual application up to Spock. Thirty feet of snow have accumulated and although they have air filters and the shelter is not in any danger to be crushed, he decides it's time to dig them out. He melts a tunnel to the surface, which releases a torrent of water that the phaser has trouble vaporizing. He is then greeted by a stunning vista of white, mountains bathed in bluish and purplish shadows. The river valley is an expanse of snow.

He manages, with much hard work, to free the shuttle and they do a number of surveys, to add to the data that they already have.

By the time they are finished Spock thinks he is finally getting some reliable results from the quantum scanner.

"Your and mine quantum signature are consistent with each other and with the materials of the shelter. The quantum signature of the planetary environment is different."

"That means we actually came back to the shelter _our_ away team built and not some away team from a parallel universe."

"That is correct Captain," Spock confirms, "Unfortunately we have a third quantum signature."

The Captain feels another headache coming on.

"And that is?"

"The shuttle has a different signature. It is not from this universe and not from our own universe either. It is from somewhere else."

"Damn," the Captain exclaims. "That means it's not our shuttle."

"Exactly, Captain, it also, in all likelihood means…"

"It's not our away team either…"

Then, it begs the question _whose_ Chekhov was lost? And where is _their_ away team?

"How is that possible Spock?" the Captain asks, rubbing his head.

"I do not know. The instability might lie in the temporal rift itself. It is possible that it is a doorway not just to one but multiple universes. Essentially, every time you enter the rift the outcome could be different."

"Spock, I'm not encouraged. I think we made a terrible mistake sending an away team through that rift in the first place. We had no idea what we were getting into…"

The Captain is not usually second guessing himself. It is probably a symptom of cabin fever. Spock distinctly remembers that there was great enthusiasm among the crew to explore the rift and he himself had calculated the risk to be within the accepted safety parameters. The Captain would never blame him, but Spock feels that he needs to reexamine the parameters upon which he bases his did this after the debacle in Niburu's biggest volcano, but feels now that he has not been thorough enough. This is undoubtedly the Captain's unhealthy influence.

" _Hey, Spock, that went pretty well! I mean, we saved the planet. And the geology department says it's stable. We did a great job. You did a great job, you saved a world!"_

" _Captain, may I remind you that we let a primitive society see a spaceship. They have, subsequently, abandoned their religious beliefs and now worship a white goddess that ascends from the sea. The impact on their cultural development is…"_

" _Spock, the anthropologists LOVE it! No, seriously, no one has ever been able to study the impact of a spacefaring on a primitive society before. It's a unique chance to learn something new. And anyway. Don't tell me that you guys had no contact at all with us before First Contact. I mean I've heard all these stories from Admiral Archer and… Hey, why are you making a face like that?"_

ooo

Before they have any chance to discuss the matter at length or work more on the quantum equations that Spock thinks are their only chance to get out of what the Captain calls "this mess", he goes outside to take some more readings on the shuttle. He becomes distracted by the setting sun and permits himself a few moments of contemplation. He hears the thunder of the avalanche but before he can react it is too late.

ooo

It takes Jim half a day to locate Spock in the vast field of snow that the avalanche created. He digs down with his phaser and a shovel, but when he reaches Spock the snow is hard packed around his body. So he does the rest of the digging with his bare hands. At the end they are bleeding but he can't feel anything because they are so numb.

He drags Spock out of the hole and almost doesn't make it because he is so heavy.

By that time Jim, of course, knows that it is too late. Spock is not breathing and there is no heartbeat. Just to make sure that the tricorder is doing it's job he puts his ear against Spock's chest and listens, but there is only silence.

He then drags Spock back to the shelter, which was just outside the area of the avalanche. The antigravity float is broken. Given Spock's weight it is an almost impossible job, but he gets it done somehow.

In complete denial, he undresses Spock, rubs him dry and wraps him in several of the heated blankets. He then sits, beside the body of his First Officer; he does not know for how long.

It is several days later when the numbness that enveloped him gradually starts to recede and a brutal and all-encompassing grief surfaces.

Looking back on the seven days after Spock supposedly died, many years later, Jim has no clear recollection how he functioned or how he made it through. He will forever be grateful that nobody was there and nobody saw him.

ooo

Jim can't stay.

There is no sign that winter is letting up but one way or the other he has to get out of here. He plans to take the shuttle. Somewhere in space, that's where he wants to be.

What exactly he'll do out there he does not know. Something will come up. It always does. Maybe the temporal rift will reappear. Maybe he'll figure out what happened to his Chekhov and his away team.

It will be a problem to get Spock's body into the shuttle because the antigravity float is still broken and he doesn't feel very strong at the moment. But he'll find a way. He can't leave Spock behind because he might never find this universe again and Spock needs to go home to the Enterprise for a proper burial. Also Bones will want to do an examination of the body.

Spock's body is still wrapped in the heated blankets and when Jim approaches him he starts thinking that the whole thing is a bit weird. It is probably the first clear thought he has had all week.

Shouldn't the body have started decomposing by now? Maybe this is different for Vulcans than for humans.

Spock doesn't _look_ dead. He's pale but there is a slight green flush to his cheeks. He looks asleep.

"Spock?" Jim asks, feeling stupid.

Of course there is no answer.

He touches Spock's cheeks and his forehead. He feels warm, but of course he would be because of the blankets.

A strange conviction arises in Jim that Spock is still alive and that if Jim manages to wake him everything will be all right.

"Spock," he says again, clapping his cheek lightly.

When there is no reaction he hits him in the face with his palm, then hits him twice more, harder.

Spock's eyes snap open and he takes a deep breath.

Jim stumbles back, almost falls and regains his balance.

"Thank you, Captain," Spock says. "It is fortunate that you know about the Healing Trance. I could have died if you hadn't woken me."

ooo

The Captain sits on the other side of the room, arms folded across his chest and watches Spock drink a cup of broth.

He is calm and composed. Maybe a bit too composed, Spock thinks. It is not like the Captain.

"I thought you were dead," he says.

Spock startles a bit.

"So you did not know about the Healing Trance?"

"Nope. Not a thing. You Vulcans are a secretive bunch. Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"It is hardly my fault that you are not familiar with Vulcan physiology."

Jim's voice has a cold edge when he says:

"There is nothing about Vulcan physiology in the Federation database. I asked Bones and he said it was classified."

"You should have asked me."

"I did."

Spock searches his memory but comes up blank. Maybe a side effect of the trance.

"You said it was of no consequence. That's an expression you really like."

"I apologize, Captain. I see now that I was in error and that the information is indeed relevant. I will have it forwarded to you as soon as we are back on the Enterprise."

"Yes, you do that."

There is an uncomfortable silence. Spock has the feeling that he missed something. The Captain is obviously angry but Spock is unsure why.

He looks around. The shelter is tidy, even the usual clutter that the Captain makes when he is working on something is absent.

The Captain scratches his beard.

"Yeah," he says when Spock looks at him, "I let it grow. It was not as if anybody was looking at me."

He gets up. His clothes are rumpled as if he had slept in them and there are dark shadows under his eyes. It is likely he had a hard time this past week. They are friends, after all, and the Captain, unaware of the ability of the Vulcan body to heal itself, thought he had died.

"Jim," Spock says, and stretches out his hand.

The Captain's face seems to crumple.

"Gonna take a shower," he mumbles. "Are you gonna be all right?"

"Yes, Jim."

"You're not suddenly gonna die on me again?"

"My condition is stable," Spock says, and because somehow he has the feeling that his credibility has been called into question, he adds: "I give you my word".

ooo

The Captain is gone for a while. When he comes back his face is flushed and his eyes red. He sees that Spock has peeled himself out of the blankets and gotten dressed and some of the strain goes out of his expression. He gets a 3D chessboard from the shelves and sets it up beside Spock.

"Are you okay?"

"I am well, Captain. It will, however take me a few days to regain my full strength."

"You need anything?"

"I assure you, Captain… "

"I don't want your assurances, Spock," the Captain says. "I just need you to tell me if you need something."

"Your company and a game of chess will be sufficient."

The Captain sets up the board. For a long time there is silence and only the occasional clicking sound of a chess piece being moved.

"Do you remember, Spock, this conversation we had with Uhura? In the K'normian ship? When we were on our way to get Khan?"

Spock could never forget.

"So, when I died, just… Spock, next time something happens can you just… remember… what you felt when you saw me dead? And assume that I feel the same thing?"

 _34 minutes. That is how long he thought the Captain was dead._

The Captain turns a knight around and around between his fingers.

Spock is still not entirely sure what he did wrong. He is sure, however, that his Captain suffered significantly.

"I am here, Jim." he says.

ooo

In the morning the Captain is bright eyed and bushy tailed. He fusses over Spock, gets out the quantum equations and says something about building a temporal transporter.

"A temporal transporter?"

Spock raises both eyebrows.

"Yeah, you know, to get people from one universe to the other."

"Jim, you are talking about building a time machine."

The Captain looks surprised.

"Sure. If you want to put it that way. It'll work for time travel, too, of course."

Genius or no genius, the Captain has probably lost his mind.

He is, however, not at all deterred by Spock's disbelief. He gets out his and Spock's PADD and starts drawing increasingly complicated diagrams.

After four days of this, with barely some breaks for eating and sleeping he looks up at Spock in defeat.

"You know what, Spock, you're probably right. I've been getting ahead of myself. We don't need a temporal transporter right now, we just need to figure out how to reopen the rift."

"Once the rift is open we still have the problem of travelling back to the right universe."

The Captain looks at his diagrams, frowning.

"We'll worry about that when we get there."

Meanwhile Spock has been working on exactly what the Captain proposes. To reopen the rift.

He watches the Captain throw down the PADD in frustration.

"Four days of work for shit," he grumbles. "I'm going to take a nap."

While the Captain dozes off in one of the bedrooms, Spock retrieves the PADD. He knows the Captain will never amount to anything as a scientist. He has the knowledge, even the geniality , but when it comes to scientific endeavour he displays a characteristic that is completely unlike him. He loses interest, gives up and goes on to something else.

Spock carefully copies all the Captain's work to his own PADD and then synchronizes it with the shuttle's database just to make sure. He knows, left to the Captain the data will invariably get lost and when Spock requests a copy later it will be nowhere to be found. It has happened before.

ooo

The next item on the Captain's list is a temporal transponder, basically a device able to emit a concentrated tachyon beam. Neither Spock nor the Captain think it will actually be able to reopen the rift. The theory says you need at least three constitution class starship to achieve the desired effect. They don't have three starships. On the other side they have a region in space that already has a temporal fault line. It might need a lot less energy to reopen it. It is their only hope at the moment.

ooo

The Captain has mounted the temporal transponder on the underside of she shuttle. It is bigger than he hoped it would be, but he couldn't find a way around it.

Now he's sitting in the pilot seat looking pale.

They're not just missing Chekhov but a whole away team of nine crewmen.

"There is a possibility that they already found their way back," Spock says.

The Captain shakes his head.

ooo

The temporal transponder works beyond their wildest dreams.

The mouth of the rift glows in brilliant colours. Purple and green shadows play over the Captain's face.

When they enter, the shuttle shudders for a moment, drifting rapidly through a swirling mist and then, with hardly any transition they are back where they came from.

"What the…" the Captain mutters. He checks their position. It is exactly the same as when they left, the planet floating above them.

"I don't know what happened, Spock… I'm gonna go in and try again."

He starts to bring the shuttle about when Spock stops him.

"Let us check the quantum signature again."

The Captain lands the shuttle back at the shelter but it is clear even before that, that this is not the same place. When they left the world was still deep in snow. Here it is late autumn. When they descend they see the faint shapes of the ice flowers sparkling in the afternoon sun. The Captain is visibly tense when they land. The shelter seems deserted. He jumps out of the shuttle and hastens inside, mindless of any danger that might be lurking. Spock follows slower, checking the quantum signature as he goes. When he enters the shelter he stops dead. Chekhov is laid out on the floor of the living space, partly covered by a blanket. The Captain hunkers beside him, rocking back and forth slowly, one hand covering his eyes the other splayed on the young man's chest. He is crying, not making a sound.

Spock takes a deep breath and steps up to the body to scan for the quantum signature. When he is finished he puts a hand on the Captain's shoulder.

"Jim," he says, softly.

There is the sound of running steps and then… Chekhov bursts into the room. He stands glued to the threshold. The Captain gets up, spinning around as if he expects to be attacked and Chekhov exclaims: "Keptin," and launches himself into the Captain's arms.

"Pavel," the Captain cries in disbelief and folds Chekhov into his arms like a long lost child.

And Spock has time to scan the quantum signature of the new arrival, too.


	5. Temporal Mechanics, Part Two

**ooo**

 **Of Friendship and Wormholes**

 _By gammacorvi_

 _ **-Chapter 4-**_

 _ **Temporal Mechanics, Part 2**_

ooo

"He is indeed the Pavel Chekov from our universe," Spock says, "the quantum signature is consistent with ours."

Pavel beams and the Captain closes his eyes for a moment in relief. Then he puts his hand companionably on the ensigns shoulder and gives him an affectionate shake.

"What happened to your face?" he asks.

Pavel's left eye is swollen shut, the skin purple and blue. His lip is split.

"It does not matter, Keptin," he says happily.

There is something somber in the Captain's expression. They have Chekov back, but somewhere, in another universe, another Captain Kirk lost his crewman.

 _When they exit the temporal rift and find themselves at the exact coordinates they had just left, the planet a sparkling marble floating above the shuttle, the first thing that pops into Pavel's mind is, that they have entered into another parallel universe. So, Pavel thinks, they have three different Universes now. One in which the Enterprise found the temporal rift and the planet does not exist. Another universe with the planet in it, and then, another one, with the same planet again, but if Pavel is right, likely with subtle differences in its evolutionary history. Pavel plans to first scan the atmospheric composition. This might be enough to verify his theory. He turns toward the scientific console which is occupied by Lieutenant Chang, a senior scientist in Spock's team._

" _Dammit, what happened?" exclaims Lieutenant Baker, who leads the away team. "We're back where we started. Ensign Cho, verify our position."_

" _Verified, Sir, we're back where we started."_

" _Bring us about, Ensign, we're going back in."_

" _No," Pavel exclaims, "let me do the readings. Ve are not back vere we started. This is another alternate universe."_

" _Bring us in, Ensign. The rift is closing, there is no time to lose."_

" _Sir," Pavel says, "The rift might take us to another universe again, not back to the Enterprise!"_

 _Lieutenant Chang is blocking the console with his bulk._

" _Nonsense," Lieutenant Baker says, "Ensign Cho…"_

 _Pavel exclaims in alarm. He knows now that the rift does not lead to a simple wormhole that connects two universes. The exact nature of it needs to be determined, but Pavel thinks that they are dealing with a potentially volatile entity that might be able to take them and deposit them… anywhere. There are universes out there with conditions completely unlike their own. Some of them might be inimical to human life. In fact, this is something they should have considered before they ever left the Enterprise._

" _Take us in, Ensign Cho," barks Lieutenant Baker, who sees that the rift is about to close on them and is terrified that they might get stranded on this side._

 _Ensign Cho hesitates just that fraction of a moment too long. He has served with Pavel for several years now, and although they don't know each other well, he has the greatest respect of the man who is a full 6 years younger than he is. In Ensigns Cho's experience when Ensign Chekov speaks you had better listen. After all he managed the whole engineering section on the drop of a hat during the Khan Crisis and did a pretty good job. It was not his fault that the warp core got sabotaged and he dealt with the whole situation like a pro. Even Engineer Scott says so._

 _If Pavel thinks there is imminent danger there probably is imminent danger and before Cho's training kicks in and tells him that an order is to be followed, no matter what, the temporal rift collapses in on itself. A last, purple tendril glances off the shuttle's port side and everyone gets a good shake._

 _There is shocked silence._

 _Then Lieutenant Baker peels himself out of his chair and rounds on Chekov, screaming insults._

" _You killed us, you imbecile. Just because you're the Commander's pet doesn't give you the right to take command. You are responsible for our deaths!"_

 _There is more, and the away team listens, open mouthed._

 _Chekov makes desperate calming motions with his hands:_

" _Sir, if you vould just listen to me…" which incites Baker even further._

 _It is true that Commander Spock is very fond of the bright, young Ensign and consults him frequently on matters that most of the other scientists on board have no hope of understanding. In Lieutenant Baker's mind this situation is made even more outrageous by the fact that Pavel is not part of the scientific department. He's the Navigator for Pete's sake!_

 _He is, of course, well aware, that Pavel Chekov's way through Starfleet Academy had been a multidisciplinary one, which he finished in record time. Pavel has more scientific credentials to his name than Baker at the advanced age of 41. He is also psychologically stable and has shown sufficient leadership skill to be put on the command track. Very likely he will command his own starship one day._

 _Lieutenant Gary Baker is deeply envious of the young man. Also, he worships the very ground that Commander Spock walks on and, although the Commander is always very respectful and unfailingly polite toward Baker, he would like to be treated with the easy familiarity of a fellow genius, the way Spock approaches Pavel._

 _In fact, Pavel just saved all of them from certain death. The rift would have taken them and spit them out in a parallel universe so different from their own that matter doesn't even exist. The Shuttle would have disintegrated instantly. This is exactly what happened to the shuttle and its crew in a universe not unlike their own._

 _Of course, nobody will ever know._

 _Lieutenant Baker has worked himself up so much, he loses control and punches Pavel in the face, twice._

 _Pavel is so surprised, he doesn't even lift his hands._

 _They land back on the planet, which looks exactly the same._

 _Pavel is thrown off for a moment when they locate the shelter, but by that time he has claimed the science console and studied the atmospheric composition of the planet. It is very similar to the planet that they just left, but not exactly the same. He makes a mental note to put together the quantum scanner, that he has been thinking about for a while, but never gotten around to. He's sure the Captain will help. He enjoys tinkering with Quantum Mechanics._

 _He tries to convey his observations to Lieutenant Baker, but the only one who seems to listen is Ensign Cho. Lieutenant Baker simply has decided that this is the same planet they had left and the rest of the away team is swayed in his direction, although Pavel has irrefutable proof that it is not so._

 _Since the rift has closed, there is nothing much that they can do, so on the next day the away team spreads out to do more in depth survey, while Ensign Cho is repairing the damage that the rift inflicted on the shuttle._

 _The relationship between Pavel and the other members of the away team is so strained that he checks his equipment and decides to set out on his own. Since he has a communicator and is equipped with a locator he doesn't foresee any problems in doing so._

 _Pavel is young and strong and scientifically endlessly curious, so it might be excused that he wanders too far in his fascination and by nightfall finds himself at a tributary river in a remote side valley._

 _This is not a problem for him. He can camp out here in the wilderness for several days if he wishes, but when he tries to call in, he discovers he has lost his communicator which also contains the locator._

 _Damn. He curses his own stupidity in colourful Russian metaphors._

 _On the next day he has to admit, that he is pretty lost, so he takes a break from walking and employs his navigational skill to locate the right direction. Soon afterwards he almost tumbles headfirst into one of the shallow pools that line the riverbank._

 _They visited those same pools in the alternate universe and spend several hours bathing and cooling off, although Lieutenant Baker thought they were the perfect hiding spot for alligators, which apparently never developed on that world._

 _Pavel now discovers the first significant difference between the two similar universes when he wades into the pool and is almost eaten._

 _It is a huge specimen, very similar to an earth alligator in appearance. Thankfully Pavel's phaser is fully functional. He manages to retreat to the bank, the alligator following him and when it is not deterred by the stun setting, he kills it._

 _It is his scientific curiosity that drives him to perform an autopsy of the dead animal and after having studied the physiology and general layout of the organ's he gets some strange readings on the tricorder, decides to cut open the beast's stomach and finds...himself._

 _Pavel, shocked but also fascinated, builds a travois and drags the body back to the shelter. He has to camp out again the following night and is woken by the beep of the tricorder. A notification tells him that the rift has reopened. Deeply excited he takes some readings and discovers that the rift is currently so big he can locate it as a multicoloured oblong star in the night sky._

 _One hour later his world breaks apart when he sees the streak of their shuttle against the early morning sky. He has been left behind._

The Captain's listens to this whole story with an increasingly thunderous expression.

"I am so, sorry, Keptin," Pavel finishes his story. "I should never have…"

"Indeed," Spock mumbles and exchanges a glance with the Ensign. His failings are obvious. And yet…

But the Captain just grips Pavels shoulders in his hands and looks his crewman in the eyes.

"Pavel," he says. "The Enterprise will never leave you behind. I will never leave you behind. You know that, don't you?"

His voice breaks a little on the last sentence.

"And I would never leave someone behind just for being stupid. By, God, then I would be dead by now. All the times Spock has stood by me…"

He exchanges a long, meaningful glance with his First Officer. Spock raises an eyebrow.

Pavel is overcome and on the verge of crying but the Captain claps him on the back, musses his hair and tells him that, thank God, he's still alive and now they have to get going.

"Yes, Keptin," Pavel says, swallowing his tears and looking at his Captain as if he walks on water.

ooo

They sit together on the outcrop, looking out over the River Valley. The wind carries a late summer warmth with it and the river valley sparkles with the orange and purple shades that the fall foliage has on this world. Behind them the ice flowers shimmer in the setting sun.

"How dangerous is it?" the Captain asks.

Pavel is drawing on the ground and Spock says:

"Ensign Chekov and I think that we might be dealing with a circular wormhole. Essentially an entity that connects any number of universes, although this number may be limited to only a few. Unfortunately at this point we have no means to do a survey of a wormhole. The ensign thinks that the wormhole has a sort of one-way traffic. That means that in order to get back to our starting point we would have to go full circle. "

"Like this," Pavel nods, pointing to the crude drawing he made in the shallow layer of soil.

"The wormhole also seems to be able to access different times in the same universe, which may account for, that for us several months have passed while Ensign Chekov has only been here for a few days."

"Two Enterprises and two planets," the Captain mumbles.

"That we know of," Spock confirms. There are very likely openings to other universes."

"So where it takes us, is completely random.?"

"Possibly, Captain," and "Of course, not, Keptin," Spock and Pavel say at once.

They exchange a long glance and Pavel flushes in embarrassment. But when Spock gives him a nod he continues.

"Vormhole might be influenced by vere ve vish to vish to go back to our ship, it will take us. Ve expect the worst…"

"...the worst will happen."

The Captain thinks.

"I wanted to find you…"

"And you found me, Keptin."

"This is, of course, only a theory," Spock adds.

"Yup," the Captain says, "Makes sense to me."

There is, of course, nothing to indicate that wormholes are in any way sentient entities. Jim suspects that Spock only indulges Pavel. But you never know.

They bury the Pavel Chekov from the alternate universe on the outcrop, because their own Pavel approves. A short service is conducted and Jim tries to find the right words to honour the young man none of them have known. Pavel is remarkably composed, considering that he is probably the only person ever, to bury himself. When Jim expresses this on the way down to the shelter Pavel shrugs philosophically and answers, with the all encompassing mind of a genius, who is used to express the mysteries of the universe in mathematical equations:

"These things happen."

ooo

The wormhole, this time, takes them right back to the Enterprise which really does nothing to refute Pavel's theory, Jim thinks. Spock looks pleased while he checks the quantum signature of a nearby dust cloud, while Jim responds to the joyous greeting from Uhura:

"Where have you guys been? We've been worried to death! Are Spock and Pavel okay?"

He thinks she bursts into tears after he assures her that they are all fine, but he can't be sure.

ooo

Their away team has made their way back safe and sound.

"Spock, what do you think about Lieutenant Baker?"

"He is an able scientist and quite dependable as such. Obviously he is unsuitable in an environment that is not governed by strict parameters. My assessment is that he panicked. I am at fault that I put him in this position. It was an error in judgement."

"Great, now you're saying it's all your fault. You know what, Spock, it's fucking annoying that you always take the weight of the world on your shoulders. When's the next time you're gonna sacrifice yourself?"

Spock is only slightly taken aback. He opens his mouth to defend himself from the Captain's unfair supposition. His track record during the last eighteen months has been flawless. Nobody can accuse him of having tried to sacrifice himself.

But then he closes his mouth without saying anything. He would like to avoid the Captain's eyes, instead he stares at him, his gaze becoming unfocused. Of course, Jim notices.

Because Spock knows exactly what Jim is referring to.

He is referring to the incident, when Spock took an away team to Investigate the Murasaki 312 Quasar. The shuttle had to land on Taurus II due to heavy interference from the Quasar and, yes, Spock was about to sacrifice himself to help the rest of the away team escape from the ensuing situation, when they were all saved by Nyota.

Undoubtedly, the Captain is also referring to Phaedus. Spock saved Lieutenant Hendorff's and Lieutenant Sulu's life, that is true. He also snuck behind enemy lines, alone, in what the Captain later called a 'martyr operation' to rescue them. It had been… reckless.

Not to mention Nibiru and Spock's assumption that the Prime Directive was more important than his life.

Also, what did the Captain say when Spock found him dying in the warp core, sacrificing himself so the crew could live?

It's what you would have done.

Ah, yes.

Of course, this is all in the past. Only Spock knows, as the Captain knows, that things have not changed.

"I have not forgotten neither Lieutenant Uhura's nor your own words on the subject. It is not my wish to inflict significant pain on either of you. I promise you that I will always take this into consideration."

The Captain doesn't look reassured.

"Spock, your life is important to us."

"I understand completely, Captain, I assure you, you have made your point."

The Captain's expression says 'whatever'.

"So, what do you recommend we do with Baker? "

"Lieutenant Baker was well within protocol when he left Ensign Chekov behind. This is not the example you have set for the crew, however, it is not cause for disciplinary action, either. He believed the situation imminently dangerous and took action to secure the safety of the remaining members of the away team. Since he has a superior grasp of exobiology and meteorology, but his strength lies in the interpretation of data, I recommend that he be not sent on away missions in the future."

"I don't agree, Spock. I'm going to have him transferred."

"That is for you to decide, Captain."

ooo

"What do you mean they are gone, Sulu?"

"They wanted to return to their own universe. Ensign Cho, I mean the one from the other universe, noticed that things were off after he saw you and Mr. Spock together. He says in his universe you are enemies and that Spock never forgave you for not saving Vulcan."

That gives Jim a jolt. It is a secret guilt he carries around with him that he sees reflected in Sulu's eyes.

"Apparently in their universe I died when I fell from Nero's platform. So, no Sulu."

Jim thinks about Sulu's fall without a parachute, how he went after him, how his parachute failed, too, and that it was Chekov, brilliant, bright, wonderful Chekhov who saved their lives.

"Their Captain is apparently a selfish bastard and hard to get along with. Cho said they would be left behind if they didn't return. We gave them a shuttle."

ooo

Things on the Enterprise are well. Sulu has kept a tight rein on things and Jim puts a commendation in his file.

Spock and Chekov amuse themselves by sending probes through the rift and are apparently getting a lot of fascinating data. Spock claims they will rewrite everything that is known about temporal mechanics.

Jim, meanwhile, has lost all interest in wormholes and anything that contains the word 'quantum' for the time being. He is longing for a fight. Preferably Klingons but in a pinch anything will do. Instead he convenes a meeting for the department heads to reevaluate the emergency supplies carried on the shuttles.

They have now two shuttles called Einstein, one with a quantum signature from another universe, while the Galileo was given to the other away team. Jim hardly thinks it will matter.

"Standard issue prefabricated emergency shelter," he says, "worth it's weight in gold. Durable, uncrushable, even under a mountain of snow. Replicators, obviously essential, but one of them needs to be big enough to replicate bigger parts. I had a hell of a time building the temporal transponder with all those itty bitty parts."

Scotty shakes his head.

"With all due respect, Captain, it canna' be done. If we make the second replicator bigger it wilna' fit into the standard issue casing. If we dinna' use the standard issue casing we will have to redesign the space behind the rear bulkhead, where the emergency supplies are stored. That means we will have to completely redesign the transporter that's next to it."

He throws up his hands in a dramatic gesture and looks wide-eyed at Jim.

"Sure," Jim says. "It was just an idea. We'll have it done at Starbase 11 in six months. They have the necessary expertise."

Scotty glares at him. Then starts tapping on his PADD.

"I can have it done for you in two weeks, five weeks for all the shuttles," he says without looking up.

"I knew I could count on you, Scotty."

Scotty grumbles something that nobody understands and glares at Keenser.

"Let's see…" Jim continues, " The antigravity float was broken and the broken part was made out of sonodamite. Not replicable. We tried a redesign and nothing worked. After Commander Spock had the avalanche accident I had to haul him up the mountainside. I almost didn't make it. What can I say… he nearly died."

He looks at the somber faces around the table. Nobody says a word. Jim looks at Spock.

Spock lifts an eyebrow.

In the end Pavel pipes up:

"Sonodamite is essential for antigravity devices. I have never heard of anything else that vill work."

"Come on, guys. Are you telling me sonodamite is the only possibility to construct an antigravity device?"

"At present, Captain," Scotty confirms and shakes his head sadly.

"Then we have to include sonodamite in the emergency package."

Scotty looks stricken.

"Starfleet will cut off my head for requisitioning it for emergency packaging. That stuff is expensive, Captain."

"Maybe ve can use Russian solution," Chekov says. "Ve use cryonetrium as essential component in levitation effect devices. Easily replicable."

"Great," Jim says. "Can you build us a prototype?"

Chekhov nods happily.

"Which brings us to medical supplies. Bones, there was no medical tricorder, no reference chart for any species but human and no bone regenerator. When did you last check the emergency supplies?"

Bones scoffs.

"Of course there's a medical tricorder. It's the green one. Not the blue one."

"There was no green tricorder."

Bones looks annoyed.

"All the reference data is in the tricorder."

"Big help if it's missing. So did you check it or not?"

Bones scrubs a hand over his face.

"I didn't Jim. Protocol demands that all emergency supplies are tested and packed by the Starfleet contractor on Luna Space station. We have about 30 of those on board. When we use one it's send to Luna for repacking and we use a new one. They're standardized."

He lifts a hand when Jim tries to answer.

"I get it, Jim, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'll get right on it. I guess it's no more standard issue emergency packs for us."

ooo

After the meeting Bones takes Jim aside.

"Where have you been?"

"I'm right here. What are you talking about?"

"I have to do a medical examination. You know that."

"Bones, I'm fine. I have other things to do.

"Dammit, Kid," Bones suddenly explodes. "Do you know what was going on around here while you were gone? People were worried sick. I was worried sick. Especially after we discovered that the away team was from an alternate reality. _That_ freaked a lot of people out. We thought we'd never recover you. Jim, your crew was _mourning_.

"Oh, come on Bones, we were gone for three days."

"A very long three days. And as I understand it you and the hobgoblin were down on that planet for several months."

"Don't call him that, Bones, okay?"

"Sorry, Jim. Now about Spock...,"

Jim looks up in alarm.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, calm down, Jim, he's as healthy as can be. But I was told he was in a major accident down there. There are some broken bones that have healed really well…"

Jim relaxes.

"...but what I don't understand is that you accomplished this with hardly any medical equipment. You said there wasn't even a bone regenerator."

"Yeah, he went into something that he called the healing trance. Listen, Bones…"

"What!"

Bones voice drops to a whisper and he grabs Jim's arm, casting a quick glance around if someone is listening to them.

"Did you say Healing Trance?"

"You heard me, Bones."

"Good God, Jim, do you have any idea how the Vulcan's guard information about their species? I have no in-depth information about their physiology at all. I've heard about the Healing Trance but nobody seems to know anything about it."

Bones drags Jim back to sick bay, sits him down in his office and pours him a shot of Saurian Brandy.

"I want every detail you remember."

ooo

"There was no heartbeat," Jim says.

"What? How do you know that? There must have been a heartbeat. What did the tricorder say exactly?"

The tricorder is still back on said planet in the shelter and not recoverable. Jim tries to remember if he ever did any tricorder readings on Spock while he was in the trance, but there are a lot of things he doesn't remember about that week.

"Bones," he says, helplessly, "I just don't know."

Bones looks at him.

"How did you find Spock anyway? By your description he was several feet down when you found him. How did you pinpoint his location?"

Bone's words bring back the panic and fear and he remembers scratching away the snow around Spock's body, lifting the lifeless body out…

"Jim, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Bones. I guess I must have used the tricorder but I don't remember. Everything was a bit crazy."

Bones grumbles and makes a note.

"Are we done?"

Jim doesn't feel like reliving any more tragedies and Bone's gaze on him is heavy and inquiring.

"Jim…"

"Damn, what do you want me to say, Bones? You want me to break down crying? I thought Spock was dead for _a week_. It was hell. I felt like shit. Are we done?"

Bones gets up and closes the door so nobody can overhear them.

 _Shit._

ooo

One psychological evaluation later Bones declares Jim fit for duty. His instinct tells him that the Captain needs a rest and counseling but he has to believe the data.

He was going to say something along the lines of:

 _So, what is it with you and the hobgoblin lately? You're all but attached at the hip._

But he lets it go.

Jim is rubbing his face with both hands.

He did not exactly deceive Bones on the psychological evaluation on purpose, it's just that these tests are so ridiculously easy to manipulate. One day he has to talk to Bones about that, although Bones must know, right? Anyway, he doesn't need counselling, he just needs to be left alone.

He stands up and gets ready to leave.

"Woah, wait a minute, Jim, where do you think you're going?"

Jim groans and sits back down.

"Bones, I swear, next time you…"

"Don't worry, Jim, no more soul searching. Just one more question about Vulcan physiology since you are apparently the resident expert."

Bones leans forward and looks at Jim expectantly.

"What do you know about something called the Pon Farr?"

 _ **Chapter Notes:**_

 _The 'sacrificing incidents' Spock is referring to are taken from:_

 _1\. Star Trek Volume 1 (IDW comic by Mike Johnson)_

 _2\. Star Trek Countdown to Darkness (IDW comic by Roberto Orci and Mike Johnson)_

 _3\. Star Trek Into Darkness (Movie)_


	6. Mortality

**_Of Friendship and Wormholes_**

 ** _by gammacorvi_**

 ** _~Chapter 5~_**

 ** _Mortality_**

 _It is Chekhov who calls and Spock knows instantly that things have gone horribly, terribly wrong._

" _The Admiral," Chekov begins, and then his voice breaks and he looks down to regain his composure._

 _Spock didn't expect the end to come so soon. He didn't expect it to be like this. He had always known about the fragility and brevity of human lives, and yet, he is completely unprepared for this._

 _It takes a while to get the full story from Chekov, who is devastated, hurting and suffused by guilt._

 _It is too much, and in the end Spock feels his whole body shake with the sheer impossibility of his Captain's demise. He has to terminate the connection because his own composure is slipping._

 _Their Captain, Admiral James T. Kirk, with his energy and brightness and refusal to believe in no-win scenarios has finally faced death. He is gone._

 _He was like the sun, Spock thinks, and now darkness has fallen._

 _It is many decades later that another Captain of the Enterprise pays Spock a visit. Spock, at the time, takes a much needed rest from his ambassadorial duties. He has retreated to his house, in the mountains of Kir. It is a structure hanging on a steep cliffside, overlooking a vista of peaks to the east and the Plains of Fire to the south. As all retreats in this region, it is meant for meditation and contemplation. It lacks all modern forms of communication and is only accessible by a narrow path through the mountains. To reach it is a pilgrimage in itself._

 _There is, in fact, a hidden dock for a shuttle craft in the mountainside just beneath the house. After all, Vulcans are imminently practical people, and it is used for deliveries or in case of emergencies, when a shuttle can be requested via a beacon._

 _Spock, himself, has gotten here by foot, as he always does and knows he always will. It is part of the journey, part of letting go of things. But this time, the exertion of the journey, the solitude of the path, the wind that comes down cool from the mountains late in the day has brought with it vivid memories that he cannot forget. He relives, in rich detail the times he spent with his Captain and reaches the house with the imprint of the Captain's spirit clear in his mind. He should have known then, he thinks later, that it was more than memory, that it was the Captain's mind, reaching out for his, across space._

 _It is only a few weeks after this that he sees a lone wanderer come along the mountain path. It is Captain Jean Luc Picard, who found Spock's Captain, he tells Spock, in a space anomaly called the Nexus and recovered him. Recovered him for the sole purpose to save the universe one more time, as if Jim, in his time had not done enough. As if one Enterprise Captain should not be plenty to save the day. Spock's Captain had been crushed and faced his death beneath a primitive steel structure. He died a hero, Picard stresses. He saved billions and billions of lives._

 _It means nothing to Spock._

 _He knows Picard, knows his crew, has even heard about their Nemesis, Q, one of those omnipotent, strangely amoral beings that occupy the space-time continuum. He is confident that between all of them no universes could possibly be destroyed. What did they need his Captain for? A terrible bitterness settles into his soul. He tries to tell himself that he is unreasonable but this is soon crushed under a renewed onslaught of grief._

 _After the five year mission their careers had taken them apart, only to be reunited for special occasions. When Chekov brought him notice of the Captain's death they had not seen each other for two years, Spock yearning for a reunion._

" _Please, leave," he tells the Captain of the Enterprise and Picard leaves, his keen eyes, for a moment, resting with compassion on the broken man before him._

" _I am truly sorry, Ambassador," he tells Spock and then he is gone._

 _Ashes._

All this happened a long time ago. It happened in another universe. And in this universe Spock drags himself home, in the lengthening shadows of New Vulcan's drawn out dusk. His body is weary, his feet on fire and his head throbbing steadily and painfully. He feels every single one of his 168 years.

He reaches the top of the hill along a sandy road, and a low dwelling built into the hillside becomes visible. It is the location he has chosen for his home in a universe where Vulcan, T'khasi as it was called, is no more. He stops for a moment, staggering slightly with fatigue. Of course, there is transportation available, but Spock has declined it. The road up the hill, in its solitude, reminds him of a mountain path in another time and place.

In the last year his physical and mental condition has started to deteriorate. He is suffering from debilitating headaches and the walk to this remote dwelling has started to bring back vivid recollections of that which he has lost such a long time ago. He arrives utterly exhausted but with the picture of what mattered most to him, once upon a time, in his mind.

It is an indulgence. One he should not permit himself in a world where so much has been lost and so much is waiting to be rebuilt. Why dwell on a past that belongs to another universe and can never be recovered?

"Only in memory," Spock mumbles to himself.

He enters into his home and walks through spacious rooms out to the terrace. There he sits, surrounded by desert sands and the roots of ancient, gnarled trees, looking out over the plain and the distant mountains until darkness falls. Then he goes inside to spend many hours in meditation.

Walking the road between the Vulcan Science Academy, in the small settlement of New Shi'kahr, and his home has become his life, his daily routine, until he arrives one evening to find a K'normian arms dealer standing before his door.

Admiral James T. Kirk has suspected for the past year that the universe has played a bad joke on him. First he had been stuck in a place that that fellow Picard called the Nexus. This was initially quite pleasant. He'd had ample time to relive all his shortcomings and mistakes and set everything right that he could possibly think of. But over time it had become more and more clear that he was living an illusion. That place was a place of shadows and nothing he did there really mattered. The longer he was there the more the people in his life, who at first had seemed real and vivid, became transparent and barely _there_. None more so than the one of his companions he longed for most. At first Spock had been at the periphery. There, but overshadowed by his son, by the women in his life. But, over time everything seemed to pass. David's death, as much as it had hurt, as much as it hurt still, although he had barely known the boy, was in the past. The women he had loved, now seemed like retreating waves on the sand. All that was left was the longing to go back out there, between the stars and have Spock by his side. Or, if the stars were unavailable, just Spock would do.

He was surrounded by shadows, alone, and the longing for his friend, the being closest to him in the universe, their minds connected in a way Jim could never understand, grew.

The Nexus, a year ago, had dumped him, unceremoniously, in a valley, nestled in the Kowah'hla mountains of K'normia. Jim had been here before, on shore leave, when he was still only an ensign, about 10 years before he ever met Spock. He recognized the place instantly. The mountainside was green and lush and he knew that a five minute walk around the bend of that road would take him into a quaint, but good sized town called T'hanory. He would be able to find accommodations and the possibility for communication and transport. He was delighted. He did not know how much time had passed but he intended to walk into town and call Spock right away.

Thank you, Nexus.

There was no Spock to be called. The subspace signature for his communicator was non- stardate on the communication terminal was way off. The K'normians seemed to have lost their prominent foreheads and suddenly looked almost exactly like humans. Jim could have passed for a K'normian without problems.

He had felt a shiver run down his spine and had closed his eyes. What had he gotten himself into now? And where was Spock?

Of course, in the end the answer was very simple. The Nexus, quite possibly a sentient and volatile entity, had not only deposited him in the past but in another timeline, and that meant essentially another universe altogether. Yes, there is a Spock in this universe. A bright young fellow, very highly spoken off, First Officer of the Enterprise, serving under his Captain, James T. Kirk.

The Admiral had felt reassured. At least that was as it should be. He had felt the urge to seek out his counterpart and give him some strict advice that would save him much grief in the future.

 _Never, ever, let them take you off that Starship._

 _Keep Spock at your side, always._

Simple things, but essential.

Of course, in the end he hadn't, because of the danger of world ending paradoxes and this sort of thing. Temporal Mechanics has always given him a headache.

All of this had been unwelcome news. Especially the part where Vulcan was destroyed. He dwelled on this for quite a while, thinking about possibilities to set things right. Surely he should be able to think of a way to bring Vulcan back?

Or maybe, possibly, he was just getting old and senile.

He planned to find a way back to his universe without delay.

Just to make sure, though, because he _is_ Jim Kirk and he does not like to leave stones unturned, he set out to make sure that this universe was indeed, devoid of his Spock.

It had taken him a year, fraught with frustration and doubt. Even if he managed to get back to his own universe, if he could pull apart the fabric of space and time - what if Spock was long gone? His body broken into atoms, his katra scattered into the solar wind of 40 Eridani A?

He discovered soon that there were no other Spocks, other than the one he already knew of. And he was about to pull up his tents and figure out how to move on to another universe when he heard about the Ambassador, living on New Vulcan, who supposedly sometimes went under the name of Spock.

It wouldn't hurt to have a look.

When the Admiral sees the old Vulcan approach through the falling darkness, his heart setting sun is painting the sky in vermillion, blue and chiaroscuro. The contrasts are stark and beautiful. Two of New Vulcan's moons are rising over the far horizon. The Vulcan, he notes, wears a long robe and a hood is draped loosely over his head. The Admiral sees the way the old man walks, the weariness in his step and knows this is not his Spock. His Spock does not move like this, is not this old.

 _It was a longshot, anyway,_ he thinks. But he is bitterly disappointed.

But now that he is here, he might as well talk to the Ambassador. Who knows what he might learn.

He steps forward and takes off what goes for a hat amongst K'normian arms dealers.

The old man looks up and falters. Then he reaches out with one hand as if looking for support and his knees buckle.

The Admiral jumps forward with an agility that belies his age. He puts one hand on the old man's shoulder and another around him in support and the weight of the Vulcan almost brings him to his knees.

The hood slips off and the Admiral stares into eyes that have seen everything.

Twin jolts of terror and recognition go through him. Yes, this is Spock. Some version of him at least. Old, and worn and bent with years of suffering and grief. It is not what he expected to find. Surely this is not _his_ Spock.

But then the old man takes his arm in a vice-like grip and removes the Admiral's hand from his shoulder and the moment they touch the Admiral feels _something._ An energy, well-known and welcome, reaching into him.

But Spock does not seem to notice. He yanks the Admiral's arm, strong fingers digging into his muscles, painfully, and pulls him toward the dwelling.

"How dare you," he spits, "How dare you assume his form and come here to mock me? Who are you?"

Then they are inside, among sandstone pillars and panels made out of ancient, polished wood and the Admiral realizes that it is a valid assumption. They have met enough impostors, shape shifters, mirror universe counterparts, clones and semi-omnipotent beings who can do almost anything, to last them several lifetimes.

Spock shoves the Admiral against a wall, cups one hand behind his neck and pushes his fingers into the Admiral's meld-points.

The Admiral adjusts his head fractionally and relaxes. Spock's mind slips into his, effortlessly, as if it is meant to be there. The Admiral's eyes are open and they look into Spock's. There is a mental exclamation and then Spock lifts his other hand to the Admiral's face to deepen the meld.

It is not the first time the Admiral experiences a mind-meld. He has melded with Spock over the years, always for a specific purpose, sometimes for information, sometimes even for manipulation. There is one time, when he knows Spock has eased painful memories in his mind. Only once has Spock asked permission to enter his mind. Only once has the Admiral asked for a meld, to confirm his identity.

 _You know my mind._

The question of consent has never come up between them. It has, to tell the truth, never occurred to the Admiral until this moment.

 _How does he know,_ the Admiral thinks, _how does he know that he's allowed?_

Spock reacts to the question in the Admiral's mind by pressing the fingers of his left hand into the Admiral's remaining meld-points. There is a rush of energy, a flow of emotion and then painful pressure when Spock probes deeper.

The Admiral makes a small mental adjustment, one that Spock taught him once in a rather desperate situation, and the pain goes away. The superior mind of the Vulcan slips deeper and then the Admiral feels a diffusion of shock, disbelief, joy and guilt somewhere in the farthest reaches of his brain.

 _Jim._

Spock mental presence withdraws, with ultimate care.

"Jim," Spock says, his voice gravelly and wavering. "My Captain, my friend, my t'hy'la. Forgive me. Forgive my intrusion. I could not believe."

The Admiral looks at his old friend.

"I never thought that I would find you," he says.

He folds Spock in his arms, carefully, because Spock is not one to be hugged, but Spock puts his arms around the Admiral in turn and somehow they end up on the stone floor, holding each other.

Spock is like a man in a dream. Like every evening he prepares a simple meal, but tonight his hands are shaking and the meal is for two. Jim is a bright, vibrant presence among the ancient stones, the priceless artifacts in a home where everything speaks of the past. He walks around, his bulk still clad in the clothes of a K'normian arms dealer, a 'disguise' that must have drawn some stares at the New Vulcan spaceport. He touches the spines of old tomes and strokes the texture of original Vulcan carvings. He leans casually against the counter in Spock's kitchen, his arms folded, his eyes laughing. He is the light in the darkness. Timelessness in the succession of years. That which rises from destruction, restored. As he stands there, there is a permanence about him. Something that says, I was here yesterday, I am here today, I will be here tomorrow. And Spock starts to understand the true nature of the soul that he gave to, first his loyalty, and then his love, so many years ago.

"Bet you thought, you'd gotten rid of me," Jim laughs, "but I'm like a bad penny, I always turn up."

Spock has not heard this expression in years and he feels warmed by Jim's unsentimental and irreverent attitude. Isn't it just like him to drop by after a hundred years and pretend as if nothing has happened?

Later they kneel on the meditation mat, facing each other. Jim's gaze is solemn and warm.

"It has been too long, my friend," he says, 'I never meant to leave for so long."

 _One hundred years._

"Please, permit me," Spock says, raising a hand.

"No permission is necessary," Jim says. "You know my mind."

Spock presses his hand against Jim's face and thus they stay for a long time.

The Admiral is tired but restless. Quietly he walks through the house. Spock is sleeping. The Admiral has looked in on him three times, listening to the even breathing, desperately worried. Spock looks so old, so frail, so hurt. If something happens to him the Admiral knows it is more than he can bear.

He wanders through the wide hallway into the living room, running his hand up and down the red sandstone pillars with the carvings, depicting scenes from Vulcan mythology. Red sand flows in where the front of the house is open towards the desert, encroaching on the, very un-Vulcan plush, leather armchairs and sofa. It looks beautiful and careless, a timeless, gnarled root, snaking over the dark floor, among the grains of sand. The Admiral suspects it is a carefully designed effect, probably held in check by a forcefield.

The Admiral knows that Vulcan lifespans count over two centuries. But Spock is half-human.

If only Bones were here.

Spock has given the Admiral a room at the front of the house.

There is a communications terminal behind one of the, beautifully marbled, wood panels. The Admiral doesn't hesitate.

Leonard McCoy turns on the monitor when the subspace communication comes in. He is in the middle of something, but the call is from one of the terminals in Ambassador Spock's house. If the Ambassador calls it must be important.

But the face that appears on the monitor is that of a human in late middle-age, jovial and, as they say, well-preserved.

"Bones," the man exclaims, "Thank God you're available. It's good to see you!"

Leonard is taken aback, then has a good, long look at the man.

"Good God, Jim," he finally cries, hastily shutting the door to his office. "It's you! What the hell have you gotten yourself into now."

It's unmistakably the Captain, about 40 years older and with the wrong stature and eye colour. Since this is Jim, Bones is not really surprised. Still, there is cause for alarm. He immediately starts to formulate a solution to revert Jim's age, but then decides it's better to first hear what happened. Then, in a strange double-take on reality he sees, through the transparent aluminum wall that connects his office to the rest of sickbay, the sickbay door swish open and Spock and Jim enter. Jim is bleeding freely from a gash in his forehead, trying to stem the flow with a towel. They are in the middle of a heated argument.

Bones frowns, then sighs. The situation would be mind-shattering for anyone who doesn't know Jim Kirk. But here, on the Enterprise, stuff like this is to be expected.

He's pretty sure Jim looks as if he'll live, so he leaves it up to one of the nurses to deal with them and opaques the wall. If this man really is another version of Jim, he has enough on his hands.

Several days later, on New Vulcan, the other version of Jim steps out of the entrance to the Katric Ark into the bright sunlight. The air is hot and dry and unlike the Vulcans in their heavy garments he is wearing lightweight trousers and a tunic, cool in the hot desert breeze.

The entrance is high up a mountainside and a precarious path leads down into a small oasis, nestled between sandstone, eroded into bizarre shapes. Jim can see the top of green trees, down there. There is a source of water, rising up deep from within the planet's aquifers. It only flows into the desert a short ways until it drains away.

He hears the rustle of Vulcan ceremonial garments behind him and makes room for T'Pau and four helpers who appear on the ledge beside him.

With a curt nod in his direction T'Pau departs down the path that is hewn into the mountainside. He can hear the tinkling of the bells that her helpers hold, all the way down.

The Vulcans have taken to the Admiral without batting their eyelids. That he is from another universe, presumably the same one as the esteemed Ambassador Spock, they take as an established fact. Several of them have expressed their satisfaction that he has come to join them and he is commonly referred to as Admiral Kirk, T'hy'la to Spock, which seems to hold a particular significance to the Vulcans and seems to infer that the Admiral now has a special status among them. The Admiral is not sure he understands, but it seems to be expected that he is living in Spock's home and that they are always at each other's side.

"It is the way of t'hy'lara," Spock says when the Admiral mentions it, and it is clear that the human word for friend is not quite describing the same concept, but Spock grows vague trying to explain, starting a discourse about Vulcan mythology and in the end the Admiral does not know more than he did before.

The Admiral turns when Spock and Sarek step out into the sunlight.

Sarek sighs, pulls up his hood and hides his hands in his sleeves. He is a man in his prime, much younger than Spock and he looks worn. Since the day he and the elders were rescued by his son, the younger Spock, he has carried Surak's katra. The soul of the Vulcan culture. It has taken its toll.

Today T'Pau, the grand old lady of Vulcan society, head of state and high-priestess in one, has attempted the transfer of Surak's katra into a newly fashioned vre'katra, a receptacle made out of desert glass found on New Vulcan. The ritual is an ancient one and has never been performed in modern time, but, as Jim well knows from another universe, T'Pau is well able to turn mythological concepts and ancient ritual into modern reality.

Now Surak's katra rests in a niche of the Katric Ark behind a pedestal on which sits the Kir'Shara, an equally ancient device, containing a recording of Surak's teachings.

"I wouldn't want my katra to rest in a vessel, however beautiful, for the rest of eternity," the Admiral had scoffed when Spock mentioned what they were going to do.

"You misunderstand," Spock had answered. "The vre'katra is an anchor, not a prison. Surak's katra is free to roam the universe. The vre'katra is his foothold amongst us. In this way his spirit is able to fertilize Vulcan culture."

As with all mystical concepts, the Admiral is not sure he understands the intricacies. He is, however, worried. The Vulcans, for all their will to survive, are a dying race. Spock has projected that at the rate the birthrate is declining, in a thousand years there will be no Vulcans left.

Doubtlessly, the Admiral thinks, the universe will go on without the Vulcans. Although he wonders. _Will_ it? Without their regard and acceptance of all lifeforms in the known universe? Their innate morality, their persistence in the face of destruction? The Admiral knows how deep their feelings run, how great their compassion is.

Although they have made the pursuit of logic the purpose of their lives they know that logic is not everything.

What, oh what will the universe do without them?

Or maybe the question is a more personal one. What would Admiral James T. Kirk do without his friend?

"It is done," Spock says beside him. "In due time we will be able to transfer other katras that were saved to the Katric Ark."

The Admiral knows there are a handful of other carriers of ancient katras. Vre'katras are being crafted for their use, but their transfer depends on the old ritual that only T'Pau knows how to perform. Or maybe, Jim thinks, it is fair to say that only T'Pau has the mental energy to make it happen.

Spock has paused, looking at the man who in another universe was his father.

"So few are left. So few."

Sarek inclines his head, adjusts the hood of his robe and his face falls into shadows. Without a word he departs, his steps heavy but steady on the rocky path.

Spock touches the back of the Admiral's hand, lightly, in an almost ritualistic gesture and the Admiral feels a circuit close. It is an affirmation of their friendship and of that which makes them more than friends. T'hy'lara. Bloodbrothers. Mind-brothers.

They stand there and look out over the ancient plains of this planet on which civilization never arose. A world, wide and beautiful in stunning contrasts and vivid colours, waiting for a race to come and claim it and give them a home. But maybe the Vulcans have lost too much. T'Khasi, their planet, which was ground to dust and sucked into a black hole. Six billion katras, somehow lost, scattered to the stellar winds, dissolved into the substance of the universe.

Without them, Spock tells him, Vulcan ultimately cannot go on. They were meant to be the teachers of future generations. Without them the substance of Vulcan is lost.

The Admiral wishes he could go out there in a spaceship and fix things. But he has no ship anymore, no crew. All that he has is standing here on the ledge beside him. The friend, whom he has followed across time and space. And he can only hope that the forces that rule the universe are forces of goodness and intent, that destiny is a concept to be trusted and that, in this vast stream, that Spock sometimes refers to as the multiverse, they will not be lost to each other again.

They return home, at dusk, to find a Starfleet transport from the spaceport, outside their door. Since New Vulcan has a planetwide shield for security reasons, simply to beam down is not an option.

Several security personnel are playing ball in the lengthening shadows, seemingly unbothered by the lingering heat.

Spock looks up, with pleasure.

"The kids are back," he says.

The kids turn out to be Leonard McCoy, who has taken over the kitchen and is cooking what looks like a rather lavish meal. Spock, the young Spock, surveying his counterparts library and Captain James T. Kirk, tall, blond, with bright blue eyes, sprawled on the sofa, carelessly turning one of those priceless, Vulcan artifacts over and over in restless hands.

"You know what, Spock," he just says, "This place is like a museum. We should take the old man out patrolling the Neutral Zone. It'll do him good."

When he sees the old Spock, he jumps up and puts down the artifact.

"Sir, Ambassador, it's good to see you again."

Then the Captain's eyes turn on the Admiral.

Uhura comes strolling in from the outside, carrying a handful of fragrant, yellow flowers.

Her eyes follow her Captain's gaze and she walks right up to the Admiral, planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Welcome to this Universe, Admiral," she says, "You are among friends."

Then, unperturbed, she walks to the kitchen counter and places the flowers in a bowl. Apparently they're meant to be eaten.

The Admiral looks stricken.

"Uhura?" he asks.

She looks at him and laughs.

"Yes, Sir," she says, "It's me."

"Bones!"

Leonard comes forward and is swallowed up by a bear hug. The Admiral has tears in his eyes.

Cooler is the welcome by Spock. He and the Admiral look each other up and down from a distance.

"Mr. Spock," the Admiral finally acknowledges.

"Admiral," Spock inclines his head.

The meal is a boisterous affair with the Admiral and Bones doing almost all of the talking. The Captain is probably drinking too much and the Ambassador looks on with eyes that see everything. Spock is unresponsive and stiff and excuses himself at the end of the meal to go outside where he seems to admire the night sky.

"A word, Captain," the Admiral says when they are finished. While the others clear up the dishes and the Ambassador follows Spock outside, the Captain and the Admiral retreat toward the back of the house where they can be seen, the Captain leaning with one hand against a sandstone pillar, head slightly bend, the Admiral talking to him, intently. The Captain is nodding.

"Oh, no," Uhura says to Leonard, in distress, "No, good can come of that…"

"As if it is not enough to deal with one of them," Leonard confirms. "Now we have two to deal with. God help us all…"

The Captain and the Admiral get on like a house on fire. They have decided that it is an excellent idea to take both the Admiral and the Ambassador on a cruise to the Enterprise's next mission, a geological survey of a newly discovered world. It will give Bones time, or so the Admiral claims, to thoroughly assess the Ambassador's health status. The mission in itself is deemed to be low-key and risk free and when Spock has reservations the Captain looks at him surprised:

"Come on, Spock, what could possibly go wrong."

"I cannot believe, Captain, that you are that naive," Spock counters. "In all probability anything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong. It is the way things work around you. And now there are two of you."

"That is not a very scientific statement, Spock."

"It is a fact born of long experience."

The Captain is irritated.

"If it's so hard to deal with me, stay behind and fill in for the Ambassador. I'm sure the Vulcans would be delighted."

"As First Officer it is my job to ensure yours and the crew's safety. I will bear the hardship of dealing with you for the sake of duty."

Spock's face hasn't changed but his eyes have gone soft and the Captain laughs.

"I have calculated a 87.8% percent probability that this mission will not go as planned. There is also a 16.8% probability that we will encounter significant danger."

"Only 17%? I'll take those odds, Mr. Spock."

Spock looks troubled.

Of course, Spock turns out to be right. The planet, class M, in a remote solar system, supposedly only inhabited by lower life-forms, nevertheless turns out to hold a small colony of humanoids. Where they come from is a mystery although Uhura says their language is similar to Algolian, only more primitive. Her theory is not supported by the DNA studies which show that the colony is not native to the planet but also doesn't match any known species. With only about 15% of the galaxy more or less thoroughly charted and a whole universe out there, the origin of the settlers might never be satisfactorily explained.

The proto-Algolians, as the anthropological team takes to calling them, live in a vast network of underground caverns, since the system's star is too bright for them. They use protective suits when they venture outside, which they rarely do. This is undoubtedly the reason their presence was missed during the initial survey. Still, Spock concludes, the initial survey must have been conducted in a haphazard way. He will have to have a word with Starfleet Operations.

Unfortunately the proto-Algolian society, although only numbering about 20.000 souls, is fractured right down the middle. Both sides call the other rebels, and the reason for the war seem to be solely cultural. Apparently one side refuses to acknowledge the traditional group marriage. They are, it seems, against marriage in principle.

The details are complicated, but Uhura and the team of onboard linguists and anthropologists are fascinated.

The survey and the anthropological studies go well until Ensign Cho and Ensign Chekov are ambushed by one of the factions and held hostage. What until then was an interesting scientific challenge becomes a diplomatic nightmare.

When Spock regains consciousness something is pressing on his throat, making it hard for him to breathe. He lies very still, calmly noting the state his body is in, the hurt of numerous bruises, a possible fracture of the left ulna. He is lying on his hands, still chained behind him. There is the press of rock around him. He concludes that he is not seriously wounded and as long as the rocks don't shift and he is found in time, there is every chance that he will make it out of this predicament alive. The weight of the rock is heavy on his body and he is suddenly glad that it was him and not Ensigns Cho and Chekov in the cave at the time of the blast. Their inferior physiology would not have survived the cave-in.

Time goes on and there is dust in his lungs, making him want to cough. His throat is dry. His mind is in darkness. Maybe, he thinks, this is it, after all. A fitting way to go. Yet, there are regrets. So much work remains to be done. An end to pain? He is unsure of the outcome. Does a katra, free of the body suffer? Will he be able to join with the katras of his ancestors? What is death?

Those are questions to which he thought he knew the answers, but on the threshold things look differently.

He will never see Nyota again.

The realization is unexpectedly harsh. She will be lost to him. As will Jim. There is no hope his katra will be recovered. He will be lost to them, too.

Death, so long courted, suddenly seems like a gamble, more suited for a man like Jim Kirk who pursues the unknown than for a mind like Spock's, used to logic. Death, Spock concludes, is not logical. And yet, it is true.

The stones shift and he almost loses consciousness, clinging onto it by a thread.

A tiny spark ignites in the darkness of his mind and he tries to hold on to it, lungs struggling for breath, pain traveling up his arms, twisted behind him.

Eventually he is saved by a phaser beam, carefully vaporizing rock around him, clearing a space. The pressure on his throat and chest lifts and he gulps in precious air.

"Spock?" his Captain whispers.

The bright spark in his mind is joined by the narrow beam of a flashlight and Spock coughs and opens his eyes.

His Captain's face is right beside him, blue eyes blazing.

"Spock, how hurt are you?"

Spock does a quick inventory. With his breathing restored any imminent danger is gone. The phaser has fused the rock above and prevents further cave-in. There is pain. But pain is just that, pain, especially for a Vulcan. There is no catastrophic injury.

"I am functional, Captain."

The beam of light jerks to the ceiling and there is a quick intake of breath beside him. Then the beam wanders back to his face and the Captain inches closer, finally putting a hand on his upper arm. The contact is unexpected and Spock, his touch-telepathy oversensitive at the best of times is flooded with intense emotion.

Residual fear rolled into an image of a vast snowfield and a twisted body in a grave of ice. Relief, bonded to a dizzying succession of snapshots of Spock, looking intently at a 3D chess set, standing beside the Captain's chair, grasping the Captain's shoulder in a heavy hand and spinning him around.

 _I cannot allow you to do this._

All this permeated by an underlying loop of Ensigns Cho and Chekov, chained, being kicked forward by members of one of the rebel factions.

A great deal of panic.

Dominating all these emotions a stream of… annoyance. Clear and bright like sparkling water.

The hand is removed as if it had burned itself.

"I'm sorry, Spock. I didn't think. Are you okay?"

Interestingly, though the amount of emotion in the touch was staggering and disorienting there was an undercurrent there, unreadable, but deeply reassuring. Its absence is unwelcome.

"There is no need to apologize, Captain."

 _Annoyance. It was to be expected._

"Let's get you out of here. Can you roll on your side?"

Spock does so, not without difficulty. There is that quick intake of breath again and brief heat as the phaser beam slices through metal. The chains fall away.

And although the Captain is more than aware how difficult it is for Spock to be touched casually, he puts a hand around one of Spock's wrists and examines the damage.

"Jeez, Spock, that doesn't look good."

"I assure you, Captain, there is no permanent damage done."

"I'll take your word for it."

It takes a good deal of maneuvering and squeezing to get them both out of the narrow tunnel that the Captain cut into the rock.

In the end Spock is leaning, dizzy and unwell, against the rock in the far end of the rebel cave.

"We have to get going, Spock. The structural integrity of this section is damaged. Everything could come crashing down."

Spock follows his Captain obediently. He wants to ask how Jim found him in the vast network of caverns. He is well aware that the diamagnetic ore, present in the rock, blocked all but the most basic tricorder functions. But he thinks about the bright filament of light that had sparked in his mind. The tangible awareness of his friends core that had kept him struggling and prevented him from giving way to the beckoning of darkness. He already has his answer.

It seems that almost all members of an extreme offshoot of one of the rebel factions died in the cave-in after their explosives blew up.

"By the way," Jim says, "the president is very pleased. He thinks that now that the splinter group is wiped out they might have a chance at negotiations. I'm thinking of bringing in a Federation mediator. He also he gave me his sincerest condolences about your death. Called you a necessary sacrifice."

Spock stands upright and pulls down his uniform shirt, not bothering to remove the dust. He sways a little but raises a questioning eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah, he's still in one piece. Sulu hauled me away before I could hit him. Remind me to put a commendation in his file."

They make their way over the rubble back to the entrance of the cave where they are greeted by joyful exclamations . Spock patiently endures the touch of their crewmates until Jim notes his increasing pallor and strain and puts himself between Spock and everyone else. Then Bones pushes his way through the crowd.

"Well," he huffs, "you don't look the worse for wear. Considering that we thought you were dead."

He scans Spock thoroughly with his tricorder, gives him two hyposprays and turns to Jim:

"He's a bit bruised but otherwise there's not a thing wrong with him. Since he's Vulcan I don't expect any significant psychological fallout from this experience either. As far as I'm concerned he's fit for duty."

He gathers up his medical bag.

"Come by sickbay later and I'll treat those bruises properly. That's an order."

Bones hurries away. The proto-Algolians have no doctors, only healers and Bones has been under much demand.

There is much work to do for the Enterprise crew. It has been established that the Prime Directive does not apply in this case, since the inhabitants of the planet are obviously colonists, even though they have forgotten how to conduct space flight. Also it seems that they have had contact with the infamous K'normian arms dealers. At least that's what a preliminary examination of the explosives that were used, suggests.

Spock is soon involved in determining the structural integrity of the cave and gives a hand clearing out the rubble and looking for survivors. He ignores the pain in his strained muscles and his Captain's concerned glances. He is Vulcan and if anyone can shake off what just happened it is him.

Halfway through the afternoon a familiar voice says behind him:

"A word, Mr. Spock."

It is the Admiral. His round face is somber. Spock follows him into a side tunnel where they cannot be overheard.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" the Admiral spits, not a trace of the happy joviality that already has led several people, some of them high up in Starfleet's hierarchy, to seriously underestimate him.

Spock is taken aback.

"Admiral?"

"Never do that again. Do you have any idea what that was like? To think all morning that you were dead?"

Spock is puzzled. Why would the Admiral care? They don't speak. They rarely look at each other. They go out of each other's way. Once the Admiral put a casual hand on his arm and Spock shrank away as if he had been burned.

The Admiral's voice grows soft.

"Do you have any idea what you mean to your Captain?"

Ah, this is about Jim, not about the Admiral. Spock should have known that the same old complaint should be restated. Supposedly he does not care sufficiently for his own life. He feels irritation rise and snuffs it out instantly.

"It was the logical course of action," he says coldly. "I regret that it caused the Captain pain, but ultimately…"

The Admiral throws up his hands.

"Pain," he hisses. "You could have died. You were almost crushed to death. It was pure luck."

"Which is exactly the point…"

"Look, Spock… "

The Admiral is pacing, a few steps to the left, a few steps to the right.

"I know you did the right thing. Not the logical, the _right_ thing. I know how your half-human mind works. You say 'logic' and what you mean is 'I did what felt right at the time and now I'm justifying it by applying logic to it."

The Admiral's words leave Spock speechless, not so much because, spoken to a Vulcan they can be considered a blatant insult, but because the Admiral is right. This is indeed what he does in situations as emotional as this one. Yes, he _had_ acted on impulse. Ensign Cho and Ensign Chekov were in the hands of a straggle of amateur rebels who hardly knew how to use their own weapons, likely to shoot themselves and others purely by mistake. The rebels had put them in chains and when one of them held a weapon to Ensign Cho's head, Spock had seen the expression in Cho's and in Chekhov's eyes. The situation was volatile. So Spock had started forward, knowing that the rebels were looking for a more high-profile hostage.

It is disconcerting to be so thoroughly exposed by a man he hardly knows.

The Admiral has lowered his voice. He sounds grave.

"Spock, do you know what it would do to your Captain if you died?"

Spock looks into the man's hazel eyes, wondering who he is. How similar is his soul to Jim's? Is there a mysterious connection linking individualities across the multiverse?

"You are part of his soul. Losing you is going to break him. He will look all right. He will do his job. But inside he will be dead."

Spock looks at him, disturbed.

Apparently the Admiral interpretes the stare as incomprehension because he adds, irritated:

"I know. I've been there."

Spock lowers his gaze. None of this is technically news to him. Spock knows the Captain values Spock's life above his own. And Spock reciprocates. The term t'hy'la, in fact, implies all that, even if he has never explained this to the Captain.

 _You are part of his soul._

He clears his voice. His body hurts.

"It was only logical."

"Have you heard nothing that I said?"

"On the contrary, Admiral, I have listened to you closely. Although my actions seemed impulsive I assure you that they were logical. As you have so aptly pointed out - I was almost crushed to death. My Vulcan physiology prevented catastrophic injury. If Ensign Cho and Ensign Chekov had been in my place they would now be dead."

The Admiral looks at him, eyes narrowed, unhappy.

"You know, my Spock always does that to me. I think I'm winning an argument and then…bam… But you know I'm right, Spock. Even if I were not, you still defied the Captain's direct order."

There is no arguing about that. The Captain, actually, had said: _Spock, no, don't._ But it comes down to the same thing.

"It was a request, not an order."

"You are mincing words, Mr. Spock. Next time he will make it an order and you will still defy him"

"There was no choice."

"Ensign Cho and Ensign Chekov are resourceful crewmen. They would have found a way."

"Nothing would have happened to them because the Captain was about to trade _himself_ ," Spock snaps. "This conversation is over."

He stalks away, leaving the Admiral behind, feeling almost sorry for not acknowledging the truth in his words. But he feels the need to keep the Admiral at arm's length. His soul is too similar to Jim's. Spock knows he cannot handle another connection this deep. It would tear him apart.

Also, the Admiral is not Spock's responsibility.

After that the afternoon goes on too long. Spock, with his inborn sense of the passage of time, loses track of the hours, until he feels the Captain's heavy hand on his shoulders. He turns around to look into the Captain's eyes, dull with exhaustion, his face streaked with dirt.

"Return to your quarters, Mr. Spock," he says. "You need rest."

Their work is basically done, so Spock doesn't protest.

"You should rest, too, Jim," he says and sees how his Captain's eyes grow soft while his face stays hard and unapproachable.

"I will rest," he says, "When I have time."

"Then it is my duty…"

"Don't talk to me about duty, Spock. I gave you an order. But apparently my orders are only worth following if you feel like it. "

They have been over this before. Spock tries to answer but finds himself watching the Captain's retreating back.

Annoyance indeed.

When he comes back to his quarters Uhura is not yet back. He wonders if she has heard about his misadventure.

He undresses slowly, noting the stiffness, the pain, the multiple bruises. He remembers the Doctor's order to come by sickbay but decides it can wait. Possibly until doomsday. He takes a sonic shower, wishing for hot, dry desert sand to purify his body, to scour away the grime and the exhaustion.

He puts on a Vulcan robe, letting it settle in heavy folds around his body. Then he kneels down on the meditation mat.

Jim is right, of course. So is Nyota. He should guard his own life as if it was theirs.

 _The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one._

A Vulcan phrase that is deeply ingrained in his being, in every single one of his actions.

Yet Jim, his Captain, who has made illogic a form of art and a way to live by, who is ruled by emotion and gut-feeling, the t'hy'la to Spock's soul, doesn't agree. Jim's gut-feeling is almost never wrong. The careful application of Spock's analysis to Jim's instinct works in almost any situation. And when Spock once tried to justify his actions with the Vulcan proverb, Jim had looked at him.

"No, Spock, you're wrong. It's a phrase to justify sacrificing individuals for the greater good. I don't believe in that. Every single being is the universe. Everyone is worth everything. And you…"

And here he had almost stabbed his finger into Spock's chest, stopping just short of touching.

"… you are worth the same. Your needs outweigh the needs of the many."

Spock has never heard logic as faulty. And yet, the Captain's words contain a kernel of truth. It is what he lives by. He never leaves people behind. He does not allow anyone to get lost. On the other side, he is, himself, willing to sacrifice himself both for his crew and for Spock. He is a man of deep contradiction.

Also there is more than this to consider.

" _You are part of his soul. Losing you is going to break him. He will look all right. He will do his job. But inside he will be dead."_

Spock knows how much his father suffered when the bond between him and Spock's mother was severed upon her death. How much he suffers still. It is a common occurrence in those cases where a katra was not recovered. With the loss of 6 billion Vulcan souls this suffering has become a common, very Vulcan trauma. It is regrettable but there is nothing to be done about it. The Admiral's words are an apt description of what happens when a bond breaks. The mythical and rare bond between t'hy'lara is considered the highest form of a mental bond. It is also the one that creates the most severe suffering in the one who is left behind. An unfortunate side effect that lies in the very nature of the bond.

Spock has resisted the temptation to bond with Nyota in the Vulcan way for the sole reason to spare her the agony of a broken bond. Now he traces the golden filament in his mind that connects him to his friend.

" _Losing you is going to break him. He will look all right. He will do his job. But inside he will be dead."_

It is unthinkable to imagine his friend and Captain being subjected to this.

It is a logical enough reason to take the Captain's and Nyota's advice to guard and value his own life as if it was theirs.

"No," the Admiral says, and it is hard even to get that one word out.

"I'm sorry, Jim."

Bones looks helpless and doesn't try to hide it behind false reassurance. The Admiral is grateful for that.

They are in their quarters on the Enterprise, the Ambassador resting comfortably in the living area. The windows open up to the warbling field of the warp effect. Today the beauty of it is lost to them.

"It is not that Ambassador Spock is ill, Jim. But the scans show clearly that he is past the natural limitations of his life span. It is to be expected that his condition will deteriorate. There is nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do."

"But the Vulcan lifespan…"

The Admiral's voice breaks with emotion. He struggles visibly to continue the sentence but is unsuccessful and ends up rubbing a shaking hand over his face.

Bones pretends not to have noticed.

"Yes, you're right. According to Vulcan physiology he would have many decades left. But Ambassador Spock is half-human and already well beyond a human age."

The Admiral can't speak. His whole body is shaking and he sits down, heavily, before his knees give out.

In alarm Bones gropes for a hypospray with a tranquilizer when the Ambassador speaks.

He seems calm and unaffected.

"How long, Doctor?"

Bones turns to him.

"It's hard to say, but my guess is that you have a few years left now that Jim is at your side. Maybe two. Maybe three. But I'm speculating."

After Bones leaves the Ambassador looks at his grieving friend.

"I'm still here, Jim."

But the Admiral doesn't seem to hear. They sit like that in silence until, finally, he manages to speak.

"I don't know how to do this, Spock. I've been through this once before. I don't think I can do it again."

 _You are part of his soul. Losing you is going to break him. He will look all right. He will do his job. But inside he will be dead._

Spock's voice is soft, his words are not.

"You can. You must."

Humans were not made for this. The death of someone linked to one's mind is excruciating, even for a full Vulcan. Jim has always been the defier of odds. The conqueror of the no-win scenario. Spock is not sure his friend even believes in death. After all these years, separated by time and space, Spock believed him dead. He should be dead. And he is still here.

It will be harder for him than for anyone else.

"You will carry my katra."

Spock has an immortal soul. He believes that humans are the same. It is only logical.

"My people need you. They need both of us. And as you once said. We are better together than apart. I believe this to be true. I promise you…"

Spock voice is gravelly, ancient like one of the old roots still growing in his garden back on New Vulcan.

"... I promise you that I will not leave you. We will not be apart."

A tear slips down the Admiral's face. He wipes it away with a hand that is still shaking.

"I will hold you to it," he says.


	7. Spoiling for a Fight

**Of Friendship and Wormholes**

 **by gammacorvi**

 ** _~Chapter 6~_**

 ** _Spoiling for a Fight_**

Spock is in the lab poring over data from the 'circular' wormhole. How exactly the wormhole works is still a mystery. Spock is not even sure there _is_ such a thing as a circular wormhole. Chekov, though, displays a remarkable certainty in his observations and was working on a simulation, when he got called away to the bridge.

They are currently patrolling the border of the Neutral Zone. Things have been uneventful and, as the Captain claims, mind-bogglingly boring.

Spock is grateful for the reprieve, but the longer they are sailing along this particular stretch of space, the more his anxiety rises. Trouble is going to find them, it is just a matter of time.

He is interrupted by a transporter technician who delivers a package.

"Just got beamed over from the Nautilus," he explains.

The Nautilus is a small supply ship, used by whoever is patrolling the Neutral Zone at the moment.

Spock is mystified. He didn't order anything. The package is from a Coridan outfitter for deep space adventure trips.

Spock thinks the Enterprise most likely qualifies in that category.

Inside he finds several pieces of custom made thermal underwear. They don't look like much. The colour is an unattractive gray, and the material seems far too thin to provide any warmth. Spock lifts them out of the box into the light and notices the faint shimmer of Caworian yak fiber, one of the warmest materials in the known Galaxy.

Spock lifts an eyebrow. The price of Caworian yak fiber is exorbitant.

He examines the box, but there is no note, no explanation.

Of course he suspects that the Captain is behind this. It could be an extravagant way for apologizing. Spock can think of several incidents that might require an apology if Spock considered apologies a logical course of action. Which he does not. And the Captain does not normally apologize. At least not to Spock.

Alternatively it could simply be a gesture of kindness.

Spock considers this unlikely.

He could have asked the Captain, but the garment, once he puts it on, is so comfortable and unobtrusive that he all but forgets about it until one morning he discovers that the temperature of the Enterprise has been raised three degrees.

This is puzzling. The standard temperature on all Federation starships is 21° Celsius. This is optimal for humans but suboptimal for almost any other species.

Spock had submitted a paper, about 4 years ago, when the Enterprise was still under the command of Admiral Pike, detailing his scientific research into the most optimal common temperature range. Spock's conclusion was, that a general temperature range between 24° to 27° Celsius would be beneficial for most of the species involved.

The paper had been ignored.

Admiral Pike had read it, called it interesting from an inclusive point of view but deemed its implementation a waste of energy resources.

It was one of the few times that Spock had been disappointed by the Admiral, especially because he knew that raising the temperature of a starship to 27° would only pose a 0.00897% increase of its power consumption, negligible at best. It also meant that Pike had skipped several footnotes. He is well aware that there are several species that require significantly lower temperatures than what he proposed. The fact is that only three individuals with these specific needs actually work for Starfleet. All of them are using environmental suits.

Spock had then contemplated to press his point. But on the other hand, no species had ever logged an official complaint and Spock had come away thinking that maybe he was the only one who was cold.

He is not cold anymore, since he is now wearing an extravaganza of fine thermal underwear.

The higher temperature taken into account he is comfortable for the first time in two decades. There are, at first, a few complaints from human crew members - which are quickly stifled when the uniforms are redesigned.

One week later, having completed a full orbit around the Neutral Zone and deep into revising Chekov's paper on circular wormholes, Spock discovers one evening that the replicator has suddenly acquired a whole new lineup of Vulcan dishes. The quality is astoundingly good.

Later that evening he has a visit from Lieutenant Sulu, who also tinkers with botany. He is flushed and proud and invites Spock to come down to the hydroponics section. There he is presented with the sight of eight plomeek plants. It is the genetically unaltered, Vulcan version, that Spock, and everyone else had believed extinct. The Captain, apparently, has discovered one plant in a backyard garden on Risa, where it had been grown as an ornamental for years. Spock had no idea the Captain could even distinguish a plomeek plant from a Risan Sunspot.

The plants are already producing abundant fruit and Spock is so overcome that everyone present pretends not to look at him.

It occurs to him that the Captain, and possibly Nyota, have been plotting. A benign plot that is designed to impress upon him that he belongs on the Enterprise, that he has a home and that there are people that care about his well-being. People who don't want him to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Spock is touched but deems the trouble they went through for his sake unnecessary. He already changed his original parameters to include the protection of both Nyota's and Jim's continued happiness. In other words, his personal survival is now a priority, as wrong as it seems, because they consider him important.

Of course, this is something he neglected to communicate to them.

There is a deep weariness at the core of Spock's being. A vital part of his soul was sucked into the black hole when Vulcan perished. It is not recoverable.

Plomeeks and warmth are not going to change that.

The next orbit around the Neutral Zone is taking them close to the Klingon border. This is usually as uneventful as a stroll down one of Yorktown's main promenades, although Spock has warned Starfleet Command that there is a good chance that the Klingons know who tried to retrieve Khan in the Ketha province of the Klingon homeworld several years the Enterprise should be the last ship patrolling this stretch of the Neutral Zone, to not provoke an incident.

Spock had no admiration for Admiral Marcus' militarization of Starfleet or for his attempts to goad the Klingons into a war. But he finds, now that Marcus and his ilk is gone, there is little understanding amongst the remaining brass, what a formidable enemy the Klingons really are. Before the Enterprise set out to kill Khan, Marcus had provided them with classified Section 31 reports that detailed not just the Klingons advanced weaponry but also their cutting-edge technology. They are the Federation's equals in technological development, Spock knows. Unfortunately Admiral Nogura and the rest of Starfleet Command still regard the Klingons as primitive warmongers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is therefore no surprise to Spock or anyone on board that they are trailed by a Klingon Bird of Prey within minutes of reaching the border. The Klingons have cloaking devices. That they are not using them means, they want to be seen.

After the Klingons appear there is a marked change in the Captain's demeanor.

A few months ago, before they took the Ambassador and the Admiral on board, there was an incident in the gym. Lieutenant Hendorff had been giving classes in self-defence and martial arts which were popular among Spock's scientists. The Captain used to attend these classes, too , not always participating, sometimes just watching.

This one time, though, he was spoiling for a fight. It started with him reminding Lieutenant Hendorff, whom the Captain likes to refer to as 'Cupcake', of their initial meeting. This is a story, that Spock has heard many a time, but which seemed virtual unknown among the rest of the crew.

" _That was a good fight, Hendorff, wasn't it", the Captain crows. "You really gave it to me. Want to show our audience here how it went down?"_

 _They have been talking about the art of street fighting. Both the Captain and Lieutenant Hendorff agree that they are talking about a consensual fight, a concept alien to most of the present scientists._

" _Why would you fight if you don't have to?" Lieutenant Sievers, one of Spock's most talented Astrophysicists asks._

 _The Captain and Lieutenant Hendorff look at each other and grin._

 _The crew present has already, unconsciously formed a circle around the two men, and Spock, standing at the outskirts cringes, because it's obvious where this is headed._

 _The Captain continues to gently goad Hendorff, who obviously relishes the idea of giving it to his Captain one more time. They start to circle each other._

" _Can't do, Captain Sir," Hendorff calls out, "I don't want to end up in the brig."_

" _Oh, come on Cupcake," the Captain says, his eyes already glazing over slightly, "It's all among friends. I promise I won't throw you in the brig. Or are you afraid?"_

 _They go at each other after that, fists flying, all rules off. It is clear that the Captain was not the only one looking for a 'good fight'. Lieutenant Hendorff seems to suffer from an unhealthy buildup of frustration, too._

 _It is an ugly fight and they are only in 30 seconds before the circle widens and there are shocked exclamations from the bystanders. At the two minute mark one of the ensigns in the front row gets spattered with the Captain's blood and ten seconds later Spock steps into the circle to end the fight._

 _The two men are circling each other again like mad bulls. The Captain becomes aware of Spock out of the corner of his eye and raises his hand._

" _We're okay, Spock. I have it under control."_

 _Spock hesitates._

 _He looks at the Captain's flushed face, his glazed eyes. Lieutenant Hendorff is not faring much better._

 _Then they are at it again._

 _Spock itches to end the fight, which he could easily do, but some instinct, which has little to do with logic, tells him to leave them alone._

 _In the end the Captain is down on the mat, the Lieutenant lying half on him, holding him in a headlock. He is bleeding from his nose and gashes in his forehead and his lips. Several of the onlookers have left and Spock makes a mental note to check the psychological profiles of those still standing by and watching, fascinated._

 _The Captain surrenders and they break it off, Lieutenant Hendorff helping him on his feet, looking worried. The Captain stands there, swaying for a moment, a grin spreading across his face. Then he claps Hendorff on the shoulder and tells him that he's the best qualified fighter on the ship and a good buddy to boot. Hendorff looks around, delighted and there is scattered applause._

 _Spock takes the Captain's arm in a vice-like grip and maneuvers him to sick bay._

" _Hey, Spock. That fight just there was consensual. What you're doing now is not. Let's go and have a drink."_

 _The Captain's voice is slurred._

" _You are setting a bad example for the crew," Spock hisses, as furious as he ever gets._

" _Oh, no, Spock, see, you don't get it," the Captain answers. "I'm setting an excellent example for the crew. Just letting off some steam. Nobody gets hurt."_

" _You are telling your crew that violence is an acceptable means of recreation."_

" _Fuck, Spock, you are such a robot…"_

 _Spock feels like hitting the Captain himself but manages to fight the urge._

 _Later, in sick bay he asks the Doctor if this is still a side effect of Khan's blood, but the good Doctor looks at Spock with pity and says:_

" _No, Spock, that's just Jim."_

 _When the Captain takes off his shirt bruises become visible. The worst ones are the black imprints of Spock's fingers on his right biceps._

Afterwards the Captain had a drink with Hendorff and several other members of security. In the days afterwards Spock noticed security approaching the Captain with deepened respect. It becomes clear, on subsequent away missions, that they would literally follow the Captain to the gates of hell and beyond. Lieutenant Hendorff is good naturedly teased that the Captain let him win and everyone seems happy.

Spock has the feeling that some sort of bonding has gone on that completely mystifies him.

It has to be noted that several of Spock's scientists are appalled by the Captain's behaviour and there are a few transfers to other vessels.

As a consequence Spock forbids the Captain to engage in any more fights with members of the crew. The Captain complies, muttering about who the heck gives Spock the authority to forbid him anything. After that things go back to normal.

If you call the Captain restlessly prowling the ship normal.

"It's really no wonder, Spock," Nyota says. "Carol transferred out six months ago. I knew something like this would happen sooner or later."

"I fail to see the connection."

Nyota looks at her lover closely.

"You fail to see the connection? You know the Captain. And we haven't had shore leave since before then. What is he supposed to do with all this pent-up energy?"

When Spock still looks at her, uncomprehendingly, she sighs and says:

"Jim is a healthy human male in his prime. He needs an intimate relationship. This is not healthy for him."

Spock thinks about this for a moment. The Vulcan procreational drive is markedly different from the human one. The closest correlation would probably be the Pon Farr, which Spock has experienced three times in his life. Unfortunately his betrothed, T'Pring perished with Vulcan and he is unsure if he can survive the next cycle. It is not something he has discussed with Nyota, who is unaware. The Pon Farr can only be relieved through mating or excessive violence and the similarity with the Captain's condition is immediately obvious.

A small sound of surprise escapes him.

"See," Nyota says, "I really don't know what to do with him."

What to do with the Captain remains an unsolved mystery. After Carol transferred, supposedly because her scientific ambitions could not be fulfilled on the Enterprise, Nyota tried to set him up with Yeoman Janice Rand, who is young, pretty, uncomplicated and adores the Captain.

But after Carol the Captain acts as if having intimate relations with a member of the crew is unheard of, even inadvisable or unethical. In fact, almost all Captains have a significant other among the crew and there is no Starfleet regulation to prohibit it.

Nyota thinks that in this case Spock, with his inhuman restraint and resulting ethics, has an unhealthy influence on his superior officer. Jim is not a Vulcan. But try to explain that to Spock.

So, now they have a Klingon Bird of Prey, stalking them from just across the Neutral Zone and the Captain is smelling blood.

There is a small planetoid just inside the Neutral Zone. It is inhabited by a colony of Tellarites, established several decades before the Neutral Zone even was proposed. Tellar Senary is wedged in between Romulan space, the Federation and the Klingons. There are frequent problems with incursions, raids and the delivery of supplies. In all this the Tellarites are thriving. There is a steady stream of complaints about Romulan and Klingon conduct aimed at the Federation, of which Tellar Senary is technically a member, and a steady stream of insults directed towards the Romulans and the Klingons, to which the Romulans reply with cold threats, and the Klingons with saber rattling and more insults.

Tellar Senary survives all this, having cultivated the art of not getting along with anyone, by having insinuated themselves into every influential political faction across the quadrant. So far nobody wants to harm the colony and thereby provoke a far reaching political and military incident.

It is the only inhabited world for several light years and the Captain seems to think it is perfect for a few days of shore leave. Spock begs to differ but he was not asked.

The negotiations about how many crewmembers can take shore leave, when and where, and what resources and services are required, takes a full two days. The Captain, who usually shies away from all diplomatic functions, seems to enjoy the Tellarite bickering, complaining and insulting.

The Captain is in the third group which beams down, together with several members of security, while Spock decides to stay on the ship, mind the conn and spend some time with Nyota.

It seems like an excellent idea, apart from fact that the Captain only spends two hours on the planetoid until he gets kidnapped by Klingons.

They are hailed by the Klingon ship, the Gr'oth, and Spock is greeted by a picture of the Klingon bridge, in half-darkness, it's commander seated on his chair on a raised platform. Jim is lying at his feet, unconscious, his head resting in a pool of blood.

Spock feels his insides clench.

There is a shocked exclamation from the Doctor, who is standing right behind him and a tiny sound from Nyota's direction, that only Spock, with his Vulcan ears can pick out.

The Klingon commander rests his chin on his hand and smiles. It would have looked rather charming, even for a Klingon, if it were not for the abused Starfleet Captain at his feet.

"Ah, the other side of the coin," the Klingon says in cultivated Standard with only a trace of a harsher accent.

"Kirk and Spock. Number one enemies of the Empire. Give yourself up now, Commander Spock and I will think about letting your crew go."

Spock looks at the viewscreen without a trace of emotion.

"To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

"I am Koloth, Captain of the Gr'oth."

"And what are your plans once you have both of us in your hand?" Spock asks reasonably.

Jim is not moving, although Spock can detect the slight raise and fall of his chest.

Koloth leans forward.

"I will torture you. Then I will take you to Qo'noS to stand trial as enemies of the Klingon people. You will be sentenced to our most notorious penal colony. Then I will torture you some more."

He shifts in his chair as if the mere thought gives him pleasure.

"Spock."

The Doctor's voice behind him, horrified.

"Not now, Doctor, if you please," Spock says.

"By God, man, that's Jim..."

"I am aware, Doctor."

"Once you have been exposed as what you are, agents of perpetrating a genocide against the Klingon people, maybe war against the Federation can be avoided."

He shifts again and prods Jim with his foot.

"Don't worry, I would never kill your Captain. It would deprive me of the pleasure of hurting him."

He summons one of his lieutenants who delivers several vicious kicks to the Captain's body.

"BIHnuch! 'IqnaH QaD!" the Klingon growls.

The Captain regains consciousness, curls up and tries to protect himself with hands that are covered in blood.

Koloth leans forward, buries his hand in the Captain's hair and yanks up his head, displaying his bloody face to everyone on the bridge of the Enterprise to see.

"So much suffering," he says, admiringly.

He lets Jim go and the Captain, only half conscious, tries to scramble to his feet.

Koloth looks at Spock across the viewscreen, motioning some of his thugs.

"Your Captain does not like to surrender. So we will beat him until he does."

The Captain is on his knees, when he is hauled up by one of the Klingons.

"Terminate the connection, Lieutenant Uhura," Spock says.

"Sir?" Nyota protests.

A Klingon fist connects with the Captain's face and blood flies.

There is a collective gasp from the Enterprise bridge crew and Spock makes a decisive gesture with his hand.

"Terminate the connection!"

The picture on the viewscreen winks out and is replaced by an outside view of the Gr'oth.

There is stunned silence.

Spock gets up and straightens his uniform.

"Mr. Sulu, you have the conn."

"Aye, sir."

"My God, Spock, what are you doing? Are you just…?"

"Mr Sulu, I will follow Captain Koloth's request and beam over to the Klingon ship. Retreat to a safe distance and inform Starfleet command. Try to avert a fight at any cost."

Sulu's face grows tight with strain.

"Yes, sir."

Spock turns and enters the turbolift, his eyes locking with Nyota's for a moment. The Doctor slips in before the doors close.

The Doctor's emotional barrage was so hard to bear that Spock almost looks forward to the Klingons. He rematerializes on a Klingon transporter pad and almost immediately he is grabbed and pushed to his knees. He does not resist when shackles are fastened around his wrists and ankles. Then he is hauled up again and, stumbling because of the short chain between his feet, shoved through the dank corridors of the Gr'oth.

It is hard to preserve his balance while being chained and Spock falls several times, each time being brought to his feet again by savage kicks with Klingon steel boots. It is undignified, but dignity is the last thing on his mind

"That was easy," Koloth says with suspicion when Spock is thrown before his feet.

Spock's hands are behind his back and he cannot break his fall. He crashes painfully to the deck, ending up at Koloth's feet.

The Captain is conscious and his eyes widen in shock when he sees Spock.

Spock scoots closer and the Captain grabs his arm.

 _The ship is safe, Jim. The ship is safe._

Somehow the Captain seems to get the message because worry leaches out of him and he looks at Spock with swollen eyes.

A shadow of cocky reassurance and a self deprecating grin float into Spock's mind.

His Captain is beaten, but not broken.

"How touching," Koloth remarks, the same note of suspicion in his voice.

Spock manages to get up, his movement strangely elegant despite the chains. He stands over his fallen Captain

"Qa'Hom!" he spits. "Hab SoSlI' Quch!"

A look of delighted rage crosses Koloth's features.

"Baktag veQ!" he yells.

Koloth looks at his two prisoners.

They are splayed at his feet like the worthless slaves that they are.

 _By Kahless_ , he thinks, _wouldn't it be glorious to convince the High Council to make them my slaves. I could watch their humiliation every day._

It would be satisfying. For years now it has been clear that there are forces in the Federation working on the extermination of the Klingon race. Those two are believed to be the main henchmen. They should eat dirt. They should spend the rest of their days bent over in bondage. Oh, Koloth will make sure that they will live to suffer.

And yet, there is a strange undercurrent of admiration in Koloth's thoughts. Has not the Vulcan hurled the most powerful and exquisite insults at him in flawless Klingon? Has he not risen again and again despite the blows, despite the blood running in green rivers off him? Has he not, despite being chained in the most humiliating manner, like a coward deserves, unable to even use his hands, felled two of Koloth's men? Have his eyes not glowed red, like the eyes of the Fek'lhr? And while Koloth admired the spirit of the human, who got up, again and again, despite his inferior strength, like a vicious, buzzing pherza, not heeding his injuries until he lost consciousness, the Vulcan was even more glorious. It is curious that he gave himself into their hands so easily, almost as if he believed the offer of peace.

Koloth looks at the viewscreen which still displays the Enterprise, gleaming white in the dark of space. Shall he engage or shall he wait? After all he has his prisoners to amuse himself with.

The Vulcan, before he was finally beaten into unconsciousness, hurled the worst insults at Koloth. That he was a coward for fighting those in bondage. That it was unbecoming for a warrior to use superior numbers to fight one being. That Koloth himself is a weakling who lets others do his fighting for him.

Koloth thinks the Vulcan is right. The adversaries have proofed themselves worthy. They deserve an honourable fight.

ooo

The darkness that swallowed Vulcan has claimed Spock, too. Or so he thinks until a persistent voice interrupts the dark again and again. Spock opens his eyes.

The light is not bright and inviting like on the Enterprise. There are shadows, dark and tinged with red.

Spock is lying on the deck. The metal is warm and carries a light vibration. His head is pillowed in Jim's lap and Jim looks down at him, a worried expression on his face.

"Thank God, Spock. I thought you had gone into the trance."

He hits the device he holds with his flat hand.

"Piece of Klingon garbage," he mutters. "Wait a moment. I almost have it."

The Klingon tricorder spits out a string of data and Jim studies it with narrowed eyes. His face is still swollen but most of the blood has been cleaned away and some of the damage has been repaired.

"Dammit, Spock, you have no heartbeat. What is it with you Vulcans?"

Spock takes the device and recalibrates it with trembling fingers.

"Your hands are shaking," Jim says, worried.

"It is… ", Spock begins and then redirects. He was going to add 'of no consequence' but knows the Captain would take that badly.

"... nothing to worry about."

The Captain looks even more worried. Regrettably he is getting to know Spock too well.

Spock has been displaying signs of beginning Pon Farr for a few weeks, now. He does not know how long it will take until the Plak Tow is upon him,but the Klingon beatings have stirred his blood and it took all of his self control to hold back.

"So where's that bloody heartbeat?"

"Here, Captain."

Spock points to one of the columns and Jim snorts.

"That's not the heartbeat."

He narrows his eyes again.

"It says… coronary redirection factor? What's that supposed to mean?

"It refers to Klingon physiology. It is not applicable to Vulcans. The tricorder is merely confused because of my hybrid physiology. It does not recognize me as a known species."

The Captain looks at him and Spock feels his hand tighten on Spock's shoulder.

"228 beats per minute?"

"Quite normal. It would be even higher for a full Vulcan."

"Shit, Spock, your hormones are way off. What the fuck…?"

"Undoubtedly an error in the tricorder's matrix," Spock says and instantly knows that he made a mistake. He is more affected than he had realized.

The Captain puts down the tricorder and starts to calibrate a klingon style dermal regenerator.

"Not sure this will work," he mumbles, "You might end up with Klingon ridges."

"It seems to have worked well enough on your injuries."

"Huh, yeah," Jim mumbles and rubs a tender spot on his chin. "Turn your head to the side."

He parts Spock's hair and runs the dermal regenerator over an oozing head injury.

"What is going on with you, Spock."

"Apart from the obvious…"

"You've been off for a while now. Not sure anyone else but Uhura and me noticed, but I want to know what's going on. And I know you're strong, but you almost killed that last Klingon, and you had you hands tied behind your back."

For a while there is only the light hum of the regenerator. Spock's throat is tight with shame. He does not know if he will be able to speak but the Captain deserves the truth.

"It is not something we discuss with outworlders…"

"I see."

"It is shameful. A return to our basest instincts. We lose all reason."

"Spock, I've seen you lose all reason on at least two occasions. How is this any different?"

Spock grows tight and rigid under Jim's hands. He pushes himself up, away from his Captain and leans against the wall. He is unwell and he can feel the fever of the Plak Tow coursing through his blood.

"It is the Pon Farr."

"Oh, Bones was talking about this the other day. He was looking for more information from the Vulcan Science Academy. But he was told… they don't give this information to… outworlders? I don't understand, Spock."

Spock tries to explain the deep cultural taboo that is connected with the Pon Farr but words fail him. In the end it is the break in his voice that tells Jim more than his actual words.

"Mating or violence, huh? Is fighting Klingons good enough?"

"I would have to kill."

"That's not exactly an option right now. We could start a war. Can you control it?"

"Up until a point," Spock whispers.

"Well, hang on, then, when we're back on the Enterprise… I mean, this is not fatal or anything, is it? You just need to get rid of those primal urges, right?"

Spock closes his eyes.

"Shit, Spock, tell me you're not gonna die!"

"Captain, this… curse… comes over a Vulcan every seven years of his life. In the regular course of things I would mate with my betrothed and no harm would be done."

"Uhura…"

"The mating requires a specific telepathic bond that I cannot force upon another."

"Force? Uhura would be happy…"

"Nyota would save my life to the detriment of her own well being and wishes. I cannot ask this of her."

Spock sees a, by now, well-known expression cross the Captain's face, the one that says, although the situation is dire, death is not an option. He is suddenly glad that he he does not have to face this on his own as he had planned to.

Mating with T'Pau had been an unpleasant duty on her part. An incompatibility in their minds had made the telepathic bond painful, something she ascribed to his hybrid physiology. Spock cannot even contemplate inflicting similar pain on Nyota, he would rather die. That his death would hurt her, too, he knows, but considers it a lesser evil.

The Captain continues his work with the dermal regenerator and Spock is grateful for his silence.

"Fuck Koloth's gladiator games," Jim mumbles.

He is bent over, breathing hard. His face is a map of new bruises and the knuckles of both his hands are bleeding. He holds himself upright with difficulty.

Spock put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"I'm getting really tired of this, Spock. I don't want to be in another fight for the rest of my life."

The Klingons could have maimed or killed them several times over, but have apparently decided they want to know how often they can knock out their prisoners before they don't get up again. Jim is clearly at the end of his rope. Spock, himself is holding back by a thread, knowing that if he gives in to his biology there will be casualties.

Koloth is standing in the middle of a circle of Klingon warriors. He has gone several rounds himself and he barely carries a mark. Now he declares that Klingon to human is an unfair fight. "Let them fight against each other," he shouts.

Spock's hand drops from his Captain's shoulder.

"No," he says, softly.

"Today we've had our fun. Let them lick their wounds. They will fight tomorrow, fresh and rested."

A roar of approval rises from the crowd.

By the next day Spock is so deeply into the blood fever that his sight is obscured by a red haze. The Captain is keeping a careful distance not daring to touch him.

"Are you okay, Spock?" he whispers when they are led into the ship's arena, but Spock can't answer. He has steepled his hands before his face, trailing the chains that the Klingons put on him, trying to control himself by a last ditch effort of meditation. He is not successful.

His thoughts have lost their grasp on reality and all he really knows is that he has two options - attack the Klingons and do as much damage as possible, incite a war - or fight his Captain.

The roar of Klingon voices rises around him and he sees Koloth standing in the middle of the arena. When they are brought before him, Spock drops to his knees in submission, the chains clanking. He knows this will likely not work on a Klingon, but it is the only path left to save Jim's life. He does not remember later what he said, the words come tumbling out, the Klingon sounds slurred. He is begging.

He knows that Jim understands. They have all been taking lessons from Uhura since the disaster in the Katha province, and he sees the shock on his face.

But Koloth only laughs.

They are led to the platform, inside a forcefield and Jim is instructed to take off Spock's chains. Wearily they circle each other. Jim says something but Spock is beyond understanding. The blood is roaring in his ears when Jim attacks. He catches him easily and slams him into the floor, feeling bone break. That's when he loses the rest of reason and conscious control. The Plak Tow swallows him whole.

Much later, it seems, he is kneeling in the middle of the arena. A dead silence has descended on the Klingon crowd. Two discarded bath'leths that Spock does not remember they've been using, are lying nearby, covered in blood.

Jim's body is under him. Twisted, lifeless, and Spock unwraps his hands from his Captain's neck. In desperate sorrow he touches his hand to Jim's face but cannot detect the stirrings of the katra.

The Plak Tow has passed. Spock is in full possession of his mental faculties, but the price has been his Captain's life.

A sound escapes him, turns into a scream that bounces of the deck and ceiling of the arena and is taken up by the Klingon warriors. Their heads laid back, they howl at the invisible sky, honouring the dead.

Jim pulls the sheet from his face and tries to get his bearings. This is not the Gr'oth. He is back on the Enterprise.

He is nauseous and there is the taste of blood in his mouth. He touches his neck, still tender, but the pain rapidly fading.

He would have expected Bones to figure out what was going on, but maybe it's his own fault. He has known all along that Khan's blood did something to him, but has been too ashamed and too afraid of possible repercussions to confide in anyone.

He sits up and swings his feet over the side of the biobed and is suddenly and violently sick, heaving onto the floor. The result looks like half digested Gagh, the last meal the Klingons fed them.

He can hear voices, far away and concludes that he is in the back of sick bay where Bones puts patients in isolation. A curtain is drawn around the biobed.

He tries to get up, but his legs are too shaky.

There is a small sound and Uhura slips through the curtains, stopping dead when she sees him. She has been crying and her cheeks are tear streaked.

"Jim," she whispers in complete disbelief.

"It's okay," he croaks, "I'm alive."

She carefully comes closer, as if he is a dangerous animal and not her Captain, first touching his arm, as if to test that he is solid, then taking his face between her hands.

"Jim."

She almost starts to cry again.

Then she turns on the screen behind the biobed and checks out his vital signs, wiping at her eyes.

"Holy shit," she mutters. Jim has never heard her swear before.

He lets himself be cradled in her arms because he still feels like shit and she smells so good. She goes so far as to place a kiss on his forehead and another one on his hair.

"Yuck," she says, "You smell like a horde of slime-devils."

He has to laugh.

Then, with another look at the vital signs the holds him at arm's length.

"How's Spock. Is he okay?" he asks anxiously.

She looks at him, her eyes dark.

"No, Jim, he's not okay. He thinks he killed you."

A fresh tear spills from her eyes.

"He thinks his life is over."

Jim's throat grows tight.

"Where is he?"

"Security beamed him directly to the brig from the transporter room. The Klingons said he was like a wild animal. They put him in chains. Nobody wanted to take a chance," she says, her voice shaking."

"What? He needs a doctor! Where's Bones?"

"In his quarters with the last bottle of Saurian Brandy. He says he lost two friends and not to call him until doomsday."

"And Boyce, M'Benga?"

"The Admiral and the Ambassador are trying to explain to them what Pon Farr is."

Jim is relieved.

"You know about the Pon Farr?"

She nods.

"Ambassador Sarek told me what to expect before we left on the mission. I was waiting for Spock to tell me himself, but… "

"Yeah, I think Spock was going to die before he told anyone. Fuck Vulcan pride."

She sits beside him and puts an arm around him. He leans into her, grateful for the support.

"How many people know? Can this be contained?"

"I think so. Just the Ambassador, the Admiral, the Doctors. Chekov was at the transporter controls. Cupcake and his security detail, but they're keeping it quiet. And Sulu, of course. We couldn't say anything, yet. It was not clear what had happened. The rest of the crew thinks you and Spock are in sickbay being checked out."

The curtain is being drawn aside and then the Admiral's voice says:

"By God, son, how did you pull that off?"

Jim uses the security override on Bones' quarters. He finds him on the couch, the unopened bottle of Saurian Brandy on the table. He sits hunched over, elbows on his knees, weeping. He doesn't notice Jim.

For a moment Jim doesn't know what to do. He thinks his heart is going to break if he has to look at his friend like this one moment longer.

"Bones," he says, softly.

Bones head snaps up. Then his jaw falls open. He gets up as if he just discovered a boa constrictor on the floor beside him and his hand fumbles for his tricorder without taking his eyes off Jim. He pulls the sensor off the docket and gives the apparition before him a long scan. Then he inches closer, walking around Jim, passing the sensor close by his body.

Finally he puts it back in the docket, sets down the device and rounds on Jim with a sneer.

"I will never forgive you for this! You are not my friend any more! How long have you known that Khan's blood is still effective?"

Then he pulls Jim into a bear hug.

It takes the combined effort of the Ambassador, the Admiral and Uhura to explain Pon Farr to the Doctor and convince him that Spock hasn't suddenly turned into a psychopathic murderer.

"Fine, okay," he finally mutters. "Just like the Vulcans to keep secrets like that. I guess now we have to put him out of his misery. Where'd Jim go?"

Jim has put on a new uniform and limped down to the brig, where he dismisses a stunned Lieutenant Hendorff and the rest of security. Then he walks over and disables the forcefield on Spock's cell.

Spock sits on the floor, restraints fastened around his ankles and wrists. His hair is dishevelled.

He lifts his head and his dark eyes widen. It is the only visible reaction.

Jim kneels beside him and removes the restraints, casting them aside. Then he sits down beside his First Officer and friend, their shoulders touching.

"I'm sorry, Spock. I had no idea how to deal with this. I figured if you hit me with that bath'leth I'd be dead, but if I could get you into hand to hand combat I had a chance."

"I was not aware that you were still under the influence of Khan's blood."

Spock's voice is steady and cool.

"I kept it a secret. After what happened with section 31 I got a bit paranoid. I'm sorry, Spock."

"I fail to see why you are apologizing to me Captain. It is I who is to blame. I killed my Captain. That you are still alive is merely luck. I will await your decision when a court-martial can be conducted."

"Court-martial…"

"I am, of course, overjoyed that you are still alive. I regret that I will have to leave the Enterprise… "

He doesn't finish the sentence

Jim almost puts an arm around Spock's shoulders but then thinks better of it.

"The Pon Farr is over?"

"Yes, Jim."

"You followed me into captivity so I would not have to face things alone. I'm not going to court-martial you because of your wacked up biology. Let's just be smart about this the next time?"

Spock shakes his head.

"Uhura knows."

"Nyota knows?" he whispers.

"Your father told her. She was waiting for you to tell her yourself, okay? Spock, you have a kick-ass girlfriend. She's not a delicate flower to be protected. Talk to her. She can take it."

Spock is shaking his head again but Jim has the feeling he got through.

"Just to clarify the situation, the Pon Farr means sex or excessive violence, right? It doesn't mean excessively violent sex?"

There is a ghost of a smile around Spock's pale lips.

"No," he says, "No violent sex."

"Good. That should be alright then. You look like death warmed over, Spock. I'm getting you to sickbay."

He gets up and offers Spock a hand.

"Anyway, it's all my fault for thinking it was a good idea to take shore leave in the middle of the Neutral Zone. Next time I come up with a bright idea like this, just relieve me of command, okay?"

Two days later they're back on patrol. The Gr'oth is gone. The Klingons are keeping quiet. So far, so good, Spock thinks. He is still struggling to get his equilibrium back.

The Doctor grumbles about Jim having achieved superpowers and that they have to keep this information from getting into section 31's hands at all costs. It is clear, though, that the ability of Jim's body to heal itself has been declining over the past 4 years. Eventually everything might go back to normal. If normal is a word that can be applied to the Captain.

Spock's Captain is on the bridge as if nothing happened. He is bright-eyed and even-tempered and if he has dark shadows under his eyes that is neither here nor there. For the moment the fight has gone out of him, but Starfleet Command has somehow gotten the impression that they're both diplomatic wizards because they got out of the Gr'oth situation without starting a war. Consequently they are expected to patrol the Neutral Zone for longer than was originally planned. Spock knows that sooner or later his Captain will be back to restlessly prowling the corridors of the ship.

"I thought we were playing chess, Spock. Why did you want to meet me in the gym?"

"It is my plan to alternate our chess games with lessons in Suus Mahna."

"Vulcan Martial arts? Cool."

"Suus Mahna takes many years to master. I have…"

"Stop talking, Spock. I need to blow off some steam. Let's get going!"

Spock thinks that if his Captain needs to fight, this will be a better way to channel his energy. All around, if the Captain gets hurt, maybe it is better that Spock does it.

The Captain grins at him.

Spock sighs.


End file.
